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EUROPEAN 



LIFE, LEGEND, AND LANDSCAPE. 



B Y 



AN ARTIST. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

JAMES CHALLEN & SON. 

LINDSAY & BLAKISTON, No. 25 SOUTH SIXTH STREET. 

1859. 






Entered, accordiug to act of Congress, in the year 1S59, by 

JAMES CIIALLEN & SON, 

iu the CI.?j-k's Office of the District Court of the UuiteJ States, in and for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 



MEARS 4 DUSEN-BEP.r, STEREOTTPErs. LirPINCOTT 4 CO., PRINTERS. 



NOV 2 2 198^ 




0. S. MURRAY, ESQ., 

ARE 
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



Philadelphia, October Ktli, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



PACE 

Land-ho! II 

I^EWHAVEN lo 

Ax English Railway l-l 

First Impressions 17 

Art in London 21 

The London Parks 20 

Metropolitan Amusements 29 

London Churches - 34 

Westminster Abbk* 37 

PaRLEZ-VOUS ANGLAiai" 41 

BiiuoES 43 

The Glove of Charles V _ 47 

Rubens 52 

How A Woman Died 66 

Brussels 63 

The Meuse 68 

Aix-la-Chapelle 74 

Charlemagne 78 

The Grand Reliques 81 

The Ring of Fastrada 83 

Koln 85 

Dusseldorf 92 

The Seven Mountains 96 

The Sceptio Converted — A Legend of the Petersthal . . . . ]00 

Rolandseck 101 

The Dampfschiff 104 

coblentz 108 

Knapsack and Staff . . .112 

Goldener Pfropfenzieher 1I6 

Oberwessel 118 

(ix) 



X Contents. 

PAGE 

Sunday Night in Prussia 120 

Bacharacu 122 

A Rencontre . . .124 

The Odenwald 128 

Thr Diligence KJl 

The Alps 135 

Chillon 137 

The Bernese Oberland — The Wengern-Alp 143 

The Great Scheideck 147 

L'Envoy 151 



EUROPEAN 
LIFE, LECxEND, AND LANDSCAPE, 



I. 

LAND-HO ! 

Fear not, my friend, that I am about to exhaust your 
patience, and consume your time, with a repetition of the oft- 
told tale of those who go down to the sea in ships — of storms 
and calms and hairbreadth 'scapes ; of vast leviathan and sea- 
man's story ; yet I cannot bid farewell to Ocean without a 
tribute to his memory, though I parted from him without a sigh. 
The " multitudinous laughter of his waves" have wrought my 
soul to joyful sympathy, and the western winds that wafted me 
from home, have seemed like messengers from my native land ; 
and their voices, as they whispered music amid the cordage, 
though sad, have seemed like the voices of accompanying 
angels, and have left an echo of peace in my heart. 

It would be well for all, who leave home for far countries, 
the first time, that the sea should be their earliest highway. 
In its entire isolation there is ample space for thought, and in its 
infinity an exhibition of the Divine, which becomes a consola- 
tion. Here, there are few things to attract the attention, or 
compel it to the contemplation of current realities ; and thus 
the mind is involuntarily and necessarily led back to memories 
of perished pleasures ; and the ghosts of past hours, clothed 
not in the cerements of the tomb, but crowned with the flowers 
of youth and happiness, haunt every moonbeam, and dance on 
each sunlit wave. There are, too, indolent imaginings and 
aspiring hopes of the future, and those high-colored mental 
pictures, which, according to Tacitus, ever cling around our 



12 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

conceptions of an unknown land. Thus while the voyage, 
though monotonous in accident and adventure, is still interest- 
ing, the soul, hj its self-communion, is prepared, through it, 
to enjoy the varied experiences of travel. Such has been my 
heart history on the waves, and that is why I now look back 
with pleasure on my voyage. Nevertheless, despite my happy 
dreams of past and future — despite the novelty and beauty of 
all things around me — the gorgeous sunset — the sublime tem- 
pest, and the intrinsic interest of the sea itself — every wave 
infinite and transcendental — I could not repress the emotion 
of intense gladness which filled my heart, and dimmed my eyes 
with tears, when the first faint misty line of blue appeared far 
ofi" on the horizon, and the busy mariner, high up on the bend- 
ing mast, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking away in 
the distance, hailed the deck — "Land ho !" 

This announcement, however familiar it is made by anticipa- 
tion, never fails to excite an universal interest ; and the deck 
is soon crowded with curious, happy faces. The most interest- 
ing groups are forward — there stand a party of emigrants 
returning home, their cheeks glowing, and their eyes sparkling 
at the sight of their native land ; — there, an old man and his 
still more aged wife, going home, perchance to die among their 
children, and to be buried in the little churchyard, where, when 
thei/ were children, they had played. It is easy to read their 
thoughts, as with hands clasped in each other's embrace, and 
streaming eyes, they. gaze, now, on the land of their birth; 
and then, up to that land above the clouds, beyond the deep 
blue sky, so soon to be their final abode. Near them are a 
party of French and Germans, each of whom has forgotten his 
English in a moment, and with wild gesticulation, is pouring 
forth his rejoicing in some barbarous ^afoi« of his native tongue. 
I have hardly time to note half of all this, when I feel myself 
carried back, down the steeps of history, to eras half forgotten, 
and epochs wholly fabulous. Some mental magic has affected 
my brain ; and on that faint blue background of Albion, in the 
distance, are pictured images of kings and queens and mighty 
men. Now, I behold the Roman eagles glittering in the sun, 
as Caesar or Agricola lead on their legions to victory ; now, the 



Newhaven. 13 

scene is changed, and tlie grating keels of the Saxon sea-kings 
touch the strand, and with rude shouts, the wild northern war- 
riors plant their standards on the hills ; William the Norman 
advances in feudal grandeur ; and now, a scene full of purest 
joy — I see a proud king bowing before his barons, and grant- 
ing to Englishmen that charter — the embryo of Anglo-Saxon 
freedom. And now, like the ghosts of Banquo's children, 
crowned with glory and honor, the shades of Shakspeare, and 
Spenser, and Milton, and Bunyan, and many more, whose lives 
being great and good, the world has recognised as sublime, 
passed before me. Then came another series of the same 
dreams, and another, and still another — all like beautiful 
fairies, aroused from the enchanted palace of memory by the 
magic incantation — " Land ho !" 

NEWHAVEN. 

For three days head-winds prevailed in the channel — for two 
we were becalmed, and each day we had distinctly seen the 
land a few miles off. Sometimes we would leave it for a few 
hours, or the proverbial mist of England would veil it from our 
vision ; but if we went to bed unblessed with the sight of it, 
the next morning's sunshine was sure to exhibit it to us. 
Again, we would approach within a mile of it, so that we could 
distinctly see the hedges and farm-houses, and cows and sheep 
and pigs ; could almost scent the flowers, and hear the milk- 
maid's song ; but we could get into no port, and, in sight of 
green fields, it was almost unbearable. As we passed Plymouth, 
and AVeymouth, and Portsmouth, and Brighton, we made suc- 
cessive attempts to reach each of them, but the head-winds 
were imperious. Relenting finally, however, they permitted 
us to land at Newhaven, and- thus my first acquaintance with 
Old England was made through one of her newest ports — a 
pleasant town enough, and quaint, too, with its peaked gables 
and red-tiled roofs, and its little Gothic spire on the hill-side, 
just beyond the only grove of trees in the neighborhood. But 
the rarest sight for a voyager, who had been a month at sea, 
were the broad fields, which stretched away to the east, dotted 
2 



14 European L i r e, L e g e n d, a n d Landscape. 

with houses and windmills, and gemmed with daisies and butter- 
cups, until at Beachy-Head they ended in abrupt chalk-cliffs, 
perpendicular to the waves. I was disappointed with the hotel, 
which combined the inn, the custom-house, and the railway 
depot in one building, resembling in outward appearance one 
of our immense white watering-place hotels, and was just as 
unquiet within. 

On landing, I strolled for awhile over the fields, picking up 
the wild flowers, and thinking, sometimes, of the history of the 
soil I now trod for the first time : oftener of the land of my 
birth, and of the old folks and young folks at home ; ever and 
anon kneeling and rolling about on the ground, hardly, as 
yet, comprehending its perfect materiality. A short time, 
hoAVCver, served for my dreams to merge into realities, the 
more especially as I had eaten nothing during the morning, 
and I returned to the hotel. Here I found my friends enjoy- 
ing themselves over the table d'hote, feasting on fresh mackerel 
and fricasseed chicken, and I quickly joined them. I was much 
amused here with the first specimen I had seen of an English 
waiter. His clerical look of grave decorum, not lessened by 
his invariable white cravat ; his polite bow, added to the re- 
quest, "Remember the waiter, sir!" and above all, his cool 
impudence and self-possession under embarrassing circum- 
stances, were all admirable. 

Newhaven is now the most usual route for those who wish to 
go from London to Paris with expedition and economy, and 
writing as I am now, amid the bustle and confusion of London, 
where the noise of the ever progressive human tide reaches 
me, in the fifth story of a hotel, with my windows exposed to 
the full glare of a hot sun, I look back on its pleasant fields 
and cool sea-breeze, with something allied to regret. 

AN ENGLISH RAILWAY. 

Punctual to the hour, the train left for London. My two 
friends and myself were the only ones who indulged in the 
luxury of a first class car, and in consequence, we had the 
whole of one to ourselves. I soon regretted our exclusiveness, 



A N E N G L I S 11 R A I L W A Y. 15 

for we were, after a four weeks' voyage together, somewhat 
th-ed of each other's faces, and bj taking a second class car, 
we would have been thrown into society new to us, where, 
doubtless, we would have found some one familiar with the lo- 
calities, to instruct us concerning them ; but, on the other hand, 
if we were deprived of this advantage, we were also freed from 
the impertinent importunities of chaperons, and had more time 
and better opportunities for reflection and free imaginative 
observation. The car itself, resembled an American stage- 
coach — somewhat more commodious, with comfortable seats for 
six persons. The speed of the train, though rapid, did not 
appear to be as great as that of American rail cars generally 
are ; I was pleased with this, as it gave me a better opportu- 
nity to see the country in passing. My observation of cha- 
racter on this trip was, of course, necessarily limited ; never- 
theless, I saw several curious things. In the office where we 
procured our tickets, I observed a rather singular charitable 
impertinence — a placard, requesting contributions for the 
benefit of the sufferers in a late accident on the road ! I threw 
a shilling into the box, less from charity than as an acknow- 
ledgment of the caution it silently enjoined. I noticed, also, 
that every Englishman we passed had red whiskers ; every 
matron was fat, every maiden was fair, all the small boys were 
ludicrous — the latter wore high-crowned beaver hats, stuck on 
the back of their heads, very wide collars, extremely short 
jackets, and appeared to be the objects of especial solicitude 
on the parts of their fat mothers and pretty sisters. 

The landscape, on leaving Newhaven, was, or would have 
been, very uninteresting, had we not been so long without see- 
ing any land at all ; but as we progressed into the interior, 
where the ground was more broken and loftier, and where trees 
became more frequent, it was indeed lovely, and fully realized 
my long-cherished dreams of English rural scenery. At one 
time we passed a wide extent of meadow land, cut up by hedges 
and houses, and smooth white roads, stretching far away into the 
blue distance ; at another, the old town of Lewes, with its ivy- 
wreathed and ruined castle on the hill, of which place I had a 
vague remembrance of its being the battle-field of contending 



16 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

armies long ago ; though whether between the Romans and the 
Britons, or the Saxons and the Normans, I knew not. The 
dimness of my memory regarding it, and the mist which hung 
before the green hills, far on the left of the road, threw both 
objects alike into the distance — the one of time, and the other 
of space — and made both more beautiful. I had not long, how- 
ever, to dream of armed knights and glorious war, for we 
rapidly passed farm-houses, so embowered in the tall old elms, 
that their thatched roofs, and quaint weather-stained chimneys, 
were all that was visible. Rosy-faced children, peeping through 
the bars of old gates, or riding donkeys up the lane ; enor- 
mous barns with their populous yards ; the teamsters in the 
fields near the roadside, stopping their labor, and gazing with 
their horses at the flying train, all lured me to the contempla- 
tion of peaceful quiet and contented happiness. Again we 
would pass a gentleman's park and mansion, sometimes ruined 
by landscape gardening, but more frequently, I have no doubt, 
greatly improved by it. Never before have I seen art so 
perfectly Avedded to nature ; roads fringed with flowers winding 
up the vistas of oak and elm groves, crossing rivulets over 
picturesque little bridges ; hedges of hawthorn, and fences 
hidden amid vines of ivy and honeysuckle ; and where the 
brook dashed down the little cascade, and formed itself into a 
smooth clear basin, the tallest and thickest of the forest trees 
grew, looking down, Narcissus-like, on their beautiful reflec- 
tions in the water. Then there was almost a wildness in the 
deep dells and umbrageous density of the foliage in the pre- 
serves, filled with partridges, squirrels, and singing birds. Here 
the only thing disturbing the solitary beauty of the spot, would 
be the universal warning to poachers, with hints of bulldogs 
and insinuations of man-traps — necessary evils ! for surely, 
when a gentleman spends so much labor and money in preserv- 
ing such beautiful spots from barbarous intrusion, any means 
to obtain the object is pardonable. The misfortune is where 
the owner values it as his larder, not as his landscape ! Again 
the train would pass a country village, with its gothic steeple 
overtopping the houses, and the little white stones in the 
churchyard lying in full view in the morning light. At the 



fiR ST Impressions. 17 

inn, neai'er the roadside, the idlers and travellers would come 
to the door ; female heads would protrude from the upper 
windows ; and the hostler, in leather knee-breeches, watering 
the horses at the pump, would turn around ; and all would look 
after us until we were out of sight. The whistle would now 
give a wild but not discordant scream, and we Avould slowly 
glide under the archway of some provincial station — Horsham, 
perhaps, associated with my memories of Shelley. And now 
we are off again, and again do we whirl past villages, and farm- 
houses, and parks. But the country becomes more thickly 
settled ; domains are not so wide, and villas are more frequent. 
The Crystal Palace at Sydenham bursts, like Aladdin's en- 
chanted dome, on the vision ; and now, full of some indefinable 
excitement, I forget the caution necessary on American rail- 
ways, and stretch my head out of the window. A cry of glad- 
ness and expectation bursts from my lips, and we roll on into 
London ; over the tops of the houses, on archways supported 
by stone pillars ; looking down on the red and the slated roofs ; 
down into garret windows, where poverty is at labor ; down 
into squalid yards, and streets, and lanes, filled with filth, and 
offal, and misery — for this is not the wealthy part of London — 
looking over to lofty steeples, embellished with curious rich 
carvings ; and over to better houses and manufactories — cleaner, 
though all dark and old ; for the very new houses here seem to 
be built of old brick and stone ; and ever as I roll along, 
and look down into the dark courts and into the garret win- 
dows, I see in them little flower pots and broken crockery 
ware, and tin pans, in which are growing sickly plants — a faint 
indication of the heart-longing for green fields and fresh air, 
in the more miserable — of a love for the beautiful in the better 
portion of the inhabitants. 

The hum of the immense city grows louder, and now we de- 
scend, and soon are set down, by an exorbitant cabman, at 
our hotel door in London. 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 

I entered London over London Bridge, and took my first 
2* 



18 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

meal at a chop-liouse near the site of the ancient Boar's Head 
Tavern; and although, an hour before, I had been full of 
glowing remembrances and excited anticipations, I ate my chop, 
and drank my half pint of sherry, just as the most common- 
place cockney in London might have done. True, I thought of 
Shakspeare, and Prince Hal, and Mistress Quickly, and " bully 
old Jack," but they passed through my mind like the dramatis 
personfe of a dream, mingled with all sorts of odd thoughts, 
incoherent and unnatural, but exciting no surprise and less 
interest, 

Li the afternoon, I walked around the city, jostled by porters, 
hailed by omnibus conductors, and solicited by petty merchants, 
who insisted on selling me matches, snuff-boxes, doll-babies, and 
old clothes. I was darting across the street to avoid a cab ; a 
ragged sweep begged a penny, and followed me into the road ; I 
missed the da.nger, but the wheel struck the little fellow, and the 
cabman hit him with the whip and cursed him. I felt for a 
copper, but had none. I chide myself even now (though I am 
used to beggars) for not having given him a shilling. As I left 
him, turning away my face, he thanked me " all the same !" I 
stopped to look at some prints in a Avindow — several other gen- 
tlemen were looking in also — soon after I missed my handker- 
chief. I met policemen in uniform ; soldiers in uniform ; foot- 
men in uniform, and little boys a foot-and-a-half high, in 
uniform. I passed Turks and Kaffirs in their native costumes ; 
Chinese, Hungarians, Portugese and Dutchmen in theirs ; and a 
policeman was leading a woman, drunken and swearing, to prison, 
who had almost no costume at all. I saw a happy family in a 
cage, and an unhappy one in an alley. I saw Punch-shows, 
and monkey-shows ; hurdy-gurdies, and ground and lofty tum- 
blers. I saw fortunes — in jewelry and plate, and rich silks 
and laces — in windows ; and I saw poverty looking at them. 
I saw beautiful ladies and ill-featured ones, in carriages and on 
foot ; and young men in dashing cabs, with a tidy boy (why 
they call such tigers, when they look so like monkeys, I 
am sure I don't know !) on the seat behind. Then I gazed at 
Guildhall, and pondered on St. Paul's, and wondered at every- 
thing. Then I found myself back at the hotel again, near 



First Impressions 19 

London Bridge, which I walked over and wandered through 
the churchyard of St. Saviour's, and read the epitaphs of 
men forgotten a hundred years ago. I went into the church, 
where the light stole dreamily through the tall lancet windows, 
and only one little ray fell upon the old gothic carvings. Here 
were other tombs, but I neglected them, and returned over the 
bridge, looking at the workmen going home, with their dinner- 
baskets ; and the cabs going to the railway stations ; and at the 
little steamboats, flying up and down the river, crowded with 
passengers ; and all, wherever I gazed, was full of life and 
bustle and business. 

At night, when the shadows had fallen upon the city, and 
the calm surface of the river glirameringly reflected the lights 
along the shore, I walked again over the bridge. St. Paul's 
loomed duskily up in the distance, and the water rippled, and 
murmured against the stone piers underneath. The human 
tide, like the river, rolled on unceasingly — the gay mingled 
with the squalidly wretched — rich and poor hurried on, or 
lounged about alike. There was apparently no rest in the pul- 
sation of the mighty heart of the great city, and I marvelled 
as I gazed. The pedestrians, as in the day-time, well repaid 
study ; and it was a lesson, not soon to be forgotten, and not 
to be learned without sadness — that which was gathered from 
the various countenances around. Here an artist micrht find 
studies for every human passion — Love and Hatred ; Hope and 
Despair ; Joy and Sorrow. What a contrast ! thought I, 
between yon happy young mother, as she leans on her hus- 
band's arm, laughing with joy, when her baby on his other arm 
crows, and wonders with his bright blue eyes at each passing 
object — a pcliceman with an embroidered coat, or a red soldier 
with brass buttons and white epaulettes — and that other 
mother, as young, and once perhaps as happy, gazing over the 
parapet, down into the rippling waters — mocking her moans 
and her child's moans, and calling upon her to loose herself 
from her present misery, and her babe from its future misery, 
and seek rest and oblivion of sorrow down in its calm still 
depths! And I thought how soon the happier mother might 
come to hear that same still voice, and how many others, 



20 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

"fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair," had heard it, and 
had accepted its low invitation. I shuddered and turned away, 
and sought for new attractions amid the crowd, but too potent 
a melancholy possessed me — the bridge appeared only a 
"Bridge of Sighs," and even long after I had ceased to 
repeat to myself Hood's immortal poem, the influence remained 
upon me. With the calm solemn river alone could I feel, or 
find sympathy — the dark shadows which lay upon its waters 
were like the sadness which brooded over my heart ; while 
the glimmering reflections of the light along shore — shining 
far down in the still depths, were like the memories of past 
joys, distant and bodiless, yet beautiful and consoling. 

Long was my vigil upon the bridge, and late the hour I 
quitted it ; yet neither was the crowd nor the confusion less ; 
and even when I had returned to my hotel, and got into bed, 
the distant murmur of the hurrying multitudes reached me like 
the sound that the surf makes when it breaks on the rocky 
shore ; and my heart was still sorrowful and solitary, for I felt 
that I was alone in a solitude deeper than that of the forest 
or the desert — I was alone in the " wide, wide world" of 
London ! 



II. 



AKT IN LONDON.* 

The first place that an artist will visit in London, the more 
especially if, like myself, he finds himself there for the first 
time, is the National Gallery. So, the day after my arrival, 
accompanied by my friends, I went there. The gallery of the 
old masters, much to our disappointment, we found closed, it 
being Saturday ; but its modern neighbor, the Royal Academy 
exhibition, was open ; and passing the red-coated soldiers, with 
monstrous fur-mountains on their heads — the ugly cerberi, who 
guard the entrances of all the public institutions here — we paid 
our shillings, procured our catalogues, and entered. It was 
not without a beating heart that I wandered through the rooms, 
rendered almost sacred by the immortal names of those, who, 
since Sir Joshua, eighty-five years ago, first formed the associa- 
tion, had exhibited their pictures and created their wide-spread 
reputations in them. The emotion I felt was wholly devoid of 
the veneration of antiquity, but I expected to be dazzled with 
a display of modern art, not to be equalled in the world ; and, 
as a natural consequence, I was disappointed. Not with 
Landseer, who has here some of his most beautiful and valuable 
pictures — one pair is especially fine — representing a dispute for 
the mastery of the glen between two noble stags. The first 
painting, called "Night," can be most fittingly and best 
described by the stanza of the poem it illustrates : — 

"The moon, clear witness of the fierce affray 
Iler wakeful lamp held o'er that lonely place, 
Fringing with light the wild lake's fitful spray, 
Whilst madly glanced the Borealis race." 



* The author would have hesitated to publish this letter, as presumptu- 
ous and faulty in its criticism, but that he wished the reader to benefit by 
his experiences, precisely as he acquired them — giving results only when 
processes were tedious and unimportant. 



22 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

Its companion, "Morning," wliere, after the hard-fought 
contest, 

" Locked in the close embrace of death they lay, 
Those mighty heroes of the mountain side — 
Contending champions for the kingly sway, 
In strength and spirit matched, they fought and died," 

is equally beautiful. The glazed eye and torn sides of the 
heroic animals, lying with interwoven antlers ; the yet half- 
fearful wolf, creeping stealthily to his feast ; and, in the gray 
distance, the hovering bird of prey, might teach ambitious 
warriors a lesson which they cannot learn too soon, nor heed 
too well. 

Nor was I less than delighted with the pictures of Cooper, 
and Ward, and Pickersgill, and Phillips. Yet the exhibition, 
as a whole, fell far below my expectations. The landscape 
part especially was, in all save correct drawing and nicety of 
detail, much inferior to many American exhibitions ; and I did 
not see a picture which could compare with those of Cole and 
Cropsey and Durand. Nor alone in this gallery, but in all I 
have examined, have the landscapes disappointed me ; unless I 
make a just exception in favor of the water-color drawings, 
which are frequently magnificent. Of these there are innumer- 
able specimens in the Academy, and at the two exhibitions of 
the Societies of Water-Color Painters, in Pall Mall. In the 
Royal Academy, as well as in every other English collection, 
fine portraits abound ; and on the walls of the present year's 
exhibition are heads, which, if they cannot be compared to those 
of Vandyke and Titian, at least equal those of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence. 

In all the modern galleries, the absence of sentiment and 
high intention is painfully apparent. Except the two Land- 
seers before mentioned, there is scarcely one great picture in the 
Academy of this year. One man has painted an immense oak, 
almost the size of life, with distressing elaboration of ferns and 
weeds in the foreground ; another has given us some wonderful 
gold-fish in a vase, one plate of strawberries, a glass of sherry, 
and six japonicas ; while a still more (or less) ambitious brother 



ArtinLondon. 23 

has painted a whole vegetable garden, or green-grocerj ; fish, 
flesh, and fowl ; still life ; and bits of genre dispute with the 
portraits the monopoly of the walls ; while there are scarcely a 
dozen with any poetry or dignified purpose. One is almost 
led, in spite of the sombre walls of the Pantheon, to regret the 
days of West and Haydon, who, with all their sprawling, had 
a feeling earnest and solemn. Art is made popular, not by 
elevating the taste of the people to it, but by dragging it down 
to their comprehension, and by selecting subjects interesting 
from some present local associations : thus, there are portraits 
of Miss Murray as " Dorothy Budd," in " St. Cupid" — Douglas 
Jerrold's late successful play ; and no less than a dozen pictures 
of the " Old Duke," as he appeared at Waterloo, and Assaye, 
and Sorauren, when last on duty at the Horse-Guards, and, 
indeed, in almost every notable event of his life. Here, too, 
the ubiquitous "Uncle Tom" solicits a portion of the public 
favor ; who, by the way, has been so often stuck in people's 
faces, in print-shops, plays, music-stores, and pictures, that 
they are all beginning heartily to wish him to abscond. The 
pictures of " little Eva" are not so tiresome, for she is a pretty 
creation in the novel, and most of the representations I have 
seen of her are equally lovely : but it is a bore, while it is 
laughable, to see the innumerable prints in the shop windows 
(" price eighteen pence, with Mrs. Stowe thrown in for two 
shillin' ") of burly Africans, with faces and forms like the 
Apollo Belvidere, their eyes like poets' in fine frenzy rolling, 
looking up to heaven, and informing gentlemen with wide hats, 
bowie knives, and cart-whips, who stand behind them, that 
"you cannot take my soul, massa!" It is a highly edifying 
sight also, to see gentlemen and ladies, who pass by supplica- 
ting ivliite poverty, with rude carelessness, stopping and gazing 
ruefully sentimental and sympathetic at the black pictured 
misery ! 

I passed from the galleries of paintings into the sculpture- 
room ; and here alone did I feel the true dignity of British art, 
sustained by McDowell, and Bell, and Wcstmacott, and Foley. 
all of whom were worthily represented. A monumental group 
here, to Percy Bysshe Shelley, although of no very great 



24 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

excellence as to art, interested me, as a fitting though tardy 
recognition of his genius and his untimely end. It bore the 
beautiful motto from his own "Adonais:" — 

" He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain ; 
And that unrest, which men miscall delight, 
Can touch him not, and torture not again." 

On the Monday following I gained admission to the National 
Gallery of the paintings of the old masters, and of deceased 
British painters, and to the British Institution for Promoting 
the Fine Arts — the only two public galleries for the exhibition 
of ancient pictures. More lately I have also been permitted 
to see several celebrated private collections, at Bridgewater 
House, the residence of the Earl of Ellesmere ; at Grosvenor 
House, the palace of the Marquis of Westminster, and some 
others of lesser attraction. Of the pictures I have thus had 
a fair opportunity of examining, I cannot write without hesita- 
tion, lest on the one hand, by telling the truth in regard to 
my impressions, I forfeit for ever all credence in my criticism ; 
or, on the other, by quoting guide books and enthusiastic 
tourists, I forfeit all claims to independence and originality ; 
and, what is of much greater consequence to me, insult my own 
veracity. Here I saw Raffaelle — the divine — the sweet prince 
of painting ! alas, it was but a hollow mockery, a hypocrisy I 
was soon ashamed of — the adoration I paid to his shrine. I 
will write no more of him now ; hereafter, when in his own 
Italy, surrounded by the same associations he was, when he 
painted there ; under the lofty roof of the Vatican, and before 
the " Transfiguration," then /may, too, become a sincere wor- 
shipper ; until then I will be silent. With the rest I was better 
pleased, for their fame was not as lofty, and with them I had 
less strong predilections to be broken ; so I gazed with plea- 
sure on Correggio ; with delight on Titian ; with admiration on 
Caracci ; Da Vinci ; and Nicolo Poussin ; and with rapture 
on Kubens. Glorious pictures are his <' Brazen Serpent," 
" Rape of the Sabines," and his allegory of " Peace and War ;" 
glorious but not divine, for theirs is the poetry of Ovid and 



ArtinLondon. 25 

Catullus, warm and voluptuous, with full fair forms, flowing 
and beautiful color, and lovely, if somewhat sketchy details. 
Were I King Cupid, Rubens should have been the painter of 
my realms. I was pleased also with the striking peculiarities 
of Rembrandt, and the exquisite grace of Murillo. Guido in 
one or two pictures well combines the voluptuous beauty of 
Rubens with the classic purity of Correggio ; and Hogarth 
affected me like Horace or Pope, only far more than either. 
Yet I am not quite sure but what modern artists have given 
the world pictures as perfect, and designs as brilliant. Throw 
aside the extraneous influence of antiquity, the sanctity born 
of a world's worship; view these old pictures of the grand old 
masters with the calm unprejudiced criticism that you would 
those of a living aspirant for fame, and you will perhaps, as 1 
have done, dare to think that there are as great artists noAv as 
have ever lived. 

The Vernon Gallery, lately bequeathed to the nation by 
Robert Vernon, Esq., at present exhibiting in Marlborough 
House, has occupied my study for several of the past sunny 
afternoons. The pictures are placed in a suite of rooms on the 
ground floor, looking out on the palace yard ; made cool by the 
shady old trees, and musical by the birds who live in them. 
They are placed in an excellent light, and I enjoyed them under 
the greatest advantages. Here, more great names were stripped 
of their meretricious reputation ; while others, as Hogarth, 
Copley, and Wilkie, were rendered still dearer. Here I saw 
some very fine pictures by Leslie, and Landseer, and Maclise : 
and some absurd caricatures of nature and art, in the pictures 
of Turner, and the landscape school generally. Creswick and 
Calcott I had especially admired in engravings of their works ; 
but the originals ruined the impression. To those who can see 
pictures in the fire, and can trace profiles in the cracks of ceil- 
ings, Turner's pictures will be interesting ; but to those unrea- 
sonable people, Avho insist on a horse looking more like a horse 
than a tree ; and a group of figures being more than a hap- 
hazard blotch of bad color, they will appear like nothing but 
daubs ; and one of these I humbly confess I am. Wilson is 
much more satisfactory than any other, with the exception of 
3 



26 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

Gainsborough, whom I conceive to be the greatest of English 
landscapists. 

This may strike some people, readers of Ruskin's " Modern 
Painters" especially, as being a very summary, perhaps imper- 
tinent, way of disposing of pictures, that the world (of guide 
books, &c.) has so long united in praising. If it is con- 
sidered so, I cannot help it, nor retract it. It would not be 
very great presumption to affirm it to be as easy to create as 
to criticise many of these works of art. Already I long for 
green hills and mountains — for some solitude where man has 
but rarely come ; and where I can gaze my fill at landscape 
devoid of affectation and empiricism — something impossible to 
find on the canvass of English landscape painters ; and hardly 
in those magnificent retreats whose beauties shall next employ 
my pen. 

THE LONDON PARKS. 

<'I don't know," said my friend, the old sea captain, as we 
lounged over the quarter-railing one evening with our cigars ; 
«' I don't know that a person can find anywhere a more pleasant 
place to pass the day, than in the London parks, wandering 
about the walks, smoking a cigar — though the tobacco is bad 
in London — and gazing at the numerous pedestrians!" 

Recollecting this expression, I was influenced soon after my 
arrival to visit the principal ones, which a three weeks' acquaint- 
ance has now associated with some of the happiest hours of 
my stay. In other parts of the city, in the purlieus of the 
East End, and in the innumerable dark and foul courts which 
abound even the heart of the metropolis, and which pour their 
human tides continually into the most public thoroughfares — 
one is ever jostled by poverty, and shocked by the most fre- 
quent and flagrant exhibitions of degradation and misery. 
But in these beautiful grounds, given by a liberality truly 
royal, to the people ; with their lovely walks ; cultivated lawns ; 
graceful and umbrageous trees ; their miniature lakes and rivers 
of crystalline water — the homes of hundreds of swans, and 
other aquatic fowl ; with skies almost blue, and an atmosphere 
free from the tainted breath of the smoky, steamii.g city; 



The London Parks. 27 

here "we find nothing but joy and pleasure ; at least, nought 
else is apparent. Everybody is gayly dressed, and the duchess, 
in her carriage on Rotten-Row, and the poor weaver, crawling 
from the lanes of Spitafields into the Victoria, are equally, for 
the time being, the votaries of enjoyment. Thus, there is a 
double pleasure to the stranger visiting the parks ; for while 
the soft beauty of the scenery captivates him, he feels, also, 
the pleasant contagion of others' happiness. I have visited 
them at all hours, and on every day of the week, and have 
ever found them delightful, amusing, and instructive. Satur- 
day is the fashionable day ; and at five o'clock in the afternoon, 
should you be in London on a pleasant day, you might, if you 
so desired, see any number of those fashionable exponents of 
English birth and breeding — the nobility and gentry of the 
realm — by standing for a short time on the mound of the statue 
of Achilles, overlooking the principal gate of Hyde Park, and 
the world renowned bridle-road, Rotten-Row. It is a place 
for more than mere observation of equipage and fashion, for 
at a short distance on the left is Apsley House, the town resi- 
dence of the Duke of Wellington ; in front the towers of West- 
minster, and the House of Parliament, rise above the trees ; on 
the right, the waters of the Serpentine glisten through the 
foliage ; while in the distance, behind, is Cumberland Palace, 
which one visits on the way to Tyburn gallows, and the grave 
of Oliver Cromwell. Rotten-Row is one of the finest, cer- 
tainly the most fashionable, drives in the world ; and from your 
post, near Achilles, you will see ladies, the representatives of 
all the virtues and accomplishments of polite society, and in 
all external attractions, save beauty, excelling perhaps any 
other class of females in the world, rolling past in handsome 
carriages. Officers in splendid uniforms, and other gentlemen, 
dash by on noble horses, or in heavy but showy phaetons. 
Footmen in all colors, look indignant when an impertinent 
costermonger, with his donkey cart, obstructs for a moment 
the passage into the gates ; their masters exchange nods fami- 
liarly, bow gracefully to ladies and distinguished acquaintances, 
and kiss their hands condescendingly to the tailor, to whom they 
owe "a small bill." The sward is covered with pedestrians of 



28 Ejropean Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

the middle class, or with strangers like yourself. Children 
there are, too, the younger with their maids, the older ones 
with their kites and hoops, or with bits of apple and cake 
enticing the swans to the shores of the lakes, and as you wit- 
ness their pleasure, you feel half inclined to procure a kite 
yourself, and be a child again ; indeed, several old gentlemen 
with spectacles, who look very like Mr. Pickwick, have evi- 
dently shared your desire, and have gleefully fraternized with 
the juveniles. On Sunday, besides the usual habitues, there 
are then workmen and clerks, who, having been chained to the 
bench or the desk for a week, now come here to enjoy with 
their wives and children the fresh air, and what sunshine nature 
is pleased to bestow. Sempstresses, too, and nurse-maids with 
their little charges; and, may be, like Wilson and Goldsmith, 
there are yet artists and poets of approaching fame, who wan- 
der, with their elbows out, amid the crowd. Young lovers take 
advantage of the retired walks to declare their mutual passion, 
and those of both sexes, who have no lover, exert here their 
most successful arts to procure them. 

A sudden shower sometimes interrupts the festivities, and 
when this is the case, the confusion and hurry of all to escape 
being wetted ; the care young gentlemen take of their hats 
and white waistcoats ; the equal anxiety of the young ladies to 
preserve their silks and muslins ; the very evident mental dis- 
comfiture of the white-stockinged lacqueys ; all this well repays 
the observer for his ducking, if he is young enough to have no 
fears of rheumatism. 

The immense size of the parks has the excellent result of 
solitude. No matter how great the crowd may be, there is 
always some retired spot to be found, with a beautiful vista, 
and a shaded sward ; where one can observe unmolested, read 
undisturbed, and dream uninterrupted. In such a sylvan sanc- 
tum, with the crowd at a distance, the Serpentine at my feet, 
and not far from Kensington Gardens, have I often lain and 
dreamed sweet dreams. Memories of the past, and visions of 
the future, ay! and thoughts somewhat less sweet of the 
present, would here find me a willing slave ; and sometimes, 
when the fragrant breeze of evening would bear to my ears 



Metropolitan Amusements. 29 

the music of the Horse Guards' band, playing before the 
palace, I have felt a purity of pleasure seldom experienced in 
this whirling city. 

The historical associations of these parks would be interest- 
ing, had we time to dwell upon them. At present Hyde Park, 
with its beautiful walks and drives ; St. James's, a verdant 
jewel, set around with palaces ; Green Park, containing her 
Majesty's residence; Regent's Park, with its exhibitions, zoo- 
logical and botanical ; the Victoria, the blessing of its quarter ; 
these, whose associations and whose beauties would fill a volume ; 
whose extent would occupy a visiter a week in traversing ; the 
most magnificent of regal gifts, and the sole breathing-places 
of more than two millions of people — the lungs as it Avere of 
London, I leave with reminiscences as fragrant with love as 
their flowers are of perfume. 

METROPOLITAN AMUSEMENTS. 

The English are a fun-loving people, in spite of their cold 
gravity ; and although the good old times have gone by, when 
if there was less security there Avas more jollity — although, as 
with us, many of the national periodical amusements have 
fallen into oblivion — the anniversary dinners of the various 
Guilds and Corporations annually becoming more rare ; the 
boar's head at Christmas, which existed as late as Washington 
Irving's time, being voted a bore — and the May Queen become 
as fabulous a creature as Titania, being confined to obscure 
rural districts, and the ballads of poets like Tennyson — though 
princes mingle no longer with boon companions in the tap- 
rooms of taverns ; and the inn of good Mistress Quickly is now 
historical — in spite of all this, the English are still a fun-loving 
people. They seek pleasure systematically. They never go 
on a spree, like the Americans, and then keep sober for a month 
afterwards to make up for it ; nor do they indulge in the extra- 
vagant gayeties of their French neighbors ; but it is a rule with 
them to enjoy life all the time if possible. Thus, although 
they drink more intoxicating liquors than the Americans, there 
is, perhaps, even less intoxication among them. Like true 
3* 



30 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

Epicureans, they follow the dictum of their master, and while 
they " curse tlie pleasure that makes a man a fool," they do 
not yield to the doctrine of total abstinence. In their eating, 
too, this economy of pleasure is manifested. The hon vivant 
over his turtle and salad, and the poorer class who have only 
cold mutton, both enjoy their meal alike. Not a morsel is 
swallowed without having given its due proportion of pleasure 
and nourishment in mastication. For this reason they are fond 
of reading at meals, especially at breakfast, digesting their 
chop and the price of stocks, their despatched lobster and the 
last despatches from India at the same time. At dinner, com- 
pany and conversation take the place of the breakfast litera- 
ture, and consume the time between the courses. Tea is merely 
a nominal meal, partaken of by ladies almost exclusively; and 
supper, which is generally eaten after the theatre or the opera, 
is passed in discussing " devilled kidneys" and Robert le Blable, 
chicken salad and Giulietta Grisi. This animal voluptuousness 
in eating, and love of society, combine to form the clubs, of 
which there are many hundreds in the metropolis. I do not 
allude merely to the palaces in the West End, maintained by 
subscription, which serve as town residences for the young 
nobility and gentry who possess no other ; and for officers of 
the army and navy, whose means and station enable them to 
prefer the gorgeous salons in Pali-Mall to their less comfortable 
quarters elsewhere ; but there exist many such societies, whose 
sole object is " to eat, drink, and be merry," and of these there 
are all grades, from the Beef-Steak Club — so aristocratic and 
exclusive, that, though nearly all noblemen, their constitution 
limits their number to twenty-five members — down to the little 
tap in Bethnal-Green, where small weavers and sweeps go each 
Saturday night to spend their earnings and toast '<■ Her Ma- 
jesty" in gin and water. I had the honor to be present, one 
evening, at a club meeting of the officers of a West India regi- 
ment, where, really, I did not know Avhich to admire the most — 
the warm-hearted courtesy, the gentlemanly wit, or the capa- 
city* for punch of each individual member. 

The most fashionable public amusement is, of course, the 
opera; which presents every evening of "the season" a varied 



Metropolitan Amusements. 31 

and delightful programme for the lovers of music, and the name 
of some distinguished diva invariably heads the bills. Crowded 
as this resort is, by all the most fashionable people, the etiquette 
of dress and other et ceteras is strictly insisted upon ; and 
apropos of this, a good story is told of an American gentleman 
who visited the parquette on Grisi's benefit. He had procured 
seats early for himself and lady, and in consequence, when a 
few moments before the curtain rose, he alighted at the en- 
trance, a policeman appeared, ready to escort him in, Avhen it 
was discovered to his dismay that, by some oversight in making 
his toilette, he had ensconced his shirt collar behind a colored 
cravat. In coat, gloves, vest, and lorgnette, he was comme il 
faut, but he had to procure a black cravat before entering ; 
the necessity was imperative, so he returned to his hotel, and 
rearranged his choker. Determined not to lose his anticipated 
entertainment, he again drove to the theatre, and very red and 
very hot, he took his seat just as Norma was coming on the 
stage to slay her children. But now a new difficulty awaited 
him : what to do with his hat — a fine beaver of Genin's manu- 
facture, which he had neglected to leave with the porter, in his 
haste to enter. He looked around and saw other gentlemen 
with opera hats, quietly pressing down the tops, and setting 
upon them. To return to the hall through the crowd was im- 
possible ; it was equally so to hold the hat in his lap, or to stick 
it under his chair. His confusion was attracting attention, 
Avhen he coolly slapped in the crown and sat down upon it. 
Of course the hat was ruined, and the incident occasioned a 
great deal of mirth in his immediate neighborhood. 

The theatres are all conducted here on what is deemed the 
most approved plan, and present constant attractions unrivalled 
in any other city in the world. Concerts, also, are on the lists 
of each evening's entertainment, and are much frequented, from 
those which the Queen gives weekly at Buckingham Palace, to 
the lowest cider-cellars, where hoarse minstrels howl comic 
songs to an orchestral accompaniment of a solitary fiddle, 
where the audience join in at the chorus, and the price of 
admission, including a glass of gin or beer, is three pence. 
Casinos also abound, differing from those on the continent in 



32 EuRO/EAN Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

very matsrial respects. The best of them are patronized by 
the nobility and gentry, and frequented by the frailest of 
womankind; dancing is here the principal employment until 
twelve o'clock breaks up the assembly. 

But the most popular, and, at the same time, respectable 
places of nightly amusement are the public gardens — The Sur- 
rey, the Cremorne, and Vauxhall — where brilliant displays of 
fireworks, excellent orchestras, and refreshments are the order 
of the evening. The Surrey closes at nine o'clock ; at the others 
theatrical performances and dancing continue the amusements 
until after midnight. To an American, who has never seen 
anything of the kind, it is impossible to describe, in language 
strong enough, the magnificence of the pyrotechnic displays at 
these places. All that imagination can design, or art create, 
has b^en brought to aid the display. When I was present I 
lived in another world — all that, as a child, I had dreamed of 
fairy land, here became a reality. At the Surrey, especially, 
was this the case. After looking at the various animals, caged 
about the garden, I walked toward the platform where the 
orchestra was performing. Here a lake suddenly burst upon 
the view, with lofty mountains stretching many miles into the 
distance, and raising their heads up to the very heavens. At 
the base of the hills were the fortifications of an oriental town 
whose light spires arose behind them. As the sun went down, 
and it became dark, lights glanced to and fro in the town ; 
and presently, with a grand burst of music, the Chinese Feast 
of Lanterns was held out on the waves. Boats containing 
masks, and beautiful with colored lights, were rowed slowly 
across ; rockets fizzed and spluttered, and fountains of fire 
blazed up from under the water ; overhead, the heavens were 
filled with stars of green and red and blue, bursting and 
changing color every moment. At a given signal a British 
fleet is seen off the town, and a bombardment commences ; fire- 
ships, sent out on their destructive errands, set fire to their 
own fleets, and flaming and exploding junks are seen floating 
in the distance. The whole concludes with a grand explosion 
of diff'erent fireworks, and " God save the Queen," by the 
orchestra ; the audience are left to pick their way out, almost 



Metropolitan Amusements. 33 

m the dark, of the garden so prodigal of light five minutes 
before. The deception of the scenery is perfect ; what appears 
to be miles away one can walk around in five minutes. The 
other gardens are similar, with some slight variations, and the 
additional amusements already noticed. 

Balls, panoramas, lectures, and exhibitions of every curiosity 
in the world, from Madame Tussaud's wax Napoleon, dressed 
in the original clothes, and sitting in the emperor's chair, down 
to a calf with two heads, or a child weighing four hundred 
pounds, are also the sources from which a British public draw 
daily instruction and amusement. The higher classes seek a 
more genial and refined pleasure in private parties, conversa- 
tion, and late suppers. At some of these, to which I was 
invited, I enjoyed myself highly. Never have I met with 
more cordial hospitality, though I have been surprised, at first, 
when I saw my fair companion sitting down at table after 
twelve o'clock eating heartily of pigeon-pie and lobster salad, 
and afterwards washing the whole down with two glasses of 
ale, and as many of sherry ! 



III. 

LONDON CHURCHES. 

I HAVE a quaint fondness for antiquity, especially developed 
in a love for the solitude of old ruins, and the dim religious 
atmosphere of old sanctuaries. It is not merely the grand in 
proportion, nor the magnificent in design, that attracts me, but 
wherever there exist mementoes or associations of byrgone 
greatness or departed piety ; for it has always seemed to me 
that there surely must exist a sanctity in those dusty old 
chapels, which have witnessed the worship and beheld the bap- 
tism and burial of so many good men, for so many long years. 
Here, too, at certain hours of the day, there is a solitude — a 
perfect retreat from the progressive busy world without, which 
must possess a charm for every meditative mind. Many are 
the calm quiet hours I have enjoyed in the shadowy cloisters 
of Westminister Abbey, and in the dim precincts of out-of-the- 
way cliapels ; and this must be my excuse for daring to invade 
a subject which the eloquence of Goldsmith, and Addison, and 
Irving have made their own. 

It would be unpardonable in writing of the London churches 
to omit giving precedence to the vast Cathedral of St. Paul's — 
the stone epic of Sir Christopher AVren. The history of this 
magnificent building, many times in flames, and thrice con- 
sumed to ashes, would doubtless be deeply interesting, could a 
fitting chronicler be found to relate it. As it is, the meagre 
data of guide-books, and some few prosy legends, comprise my 
whole knowledge of it. The present edifice is, perhaps, the 
most remarkable building in England, though far less interest- 
ing than many others. Like St. Peter's in Rome, it is the 
great landmark for the traveller approaching the city at a dis- 
tance, and among the earliest places he visits on his arrival. 
For the consideration of about a dollar and a half, there are 
guides who conduct strangers through all the principal apart- 
ments, from the crypt^ leneath, to the great bell four hundred feet 



London Churches. 35 

above ; through the library, the trophy room, the geometrical 
staircase, the whispering gallery, and the clock — a most unpro- 
fitable labor in all save the view from the exterior galleries 
above the dome, from which place the prospect of the city and 
country around is very fine, and redolent of reflection. 

In the panels of the dome are some fine pictures by Sir 
James Thornhill, now in process of restoration by her majesty's 
painter. As I stood on the floor of the rotunda, and gazed 
upwards at the slight scaffolding, far above me, where the 
artist was at work, I was reminded of the story told of the 
original painter of the designs. One day while engaged with 
his work, a friend standing conversing by him, he gave one of 
the last touches to the head of an apostle, and, as is usual with 
artists, stepped hastily backward to view the eff'ect. He had 
actually retired to the last step of the platform, when his friend, 
observing his peril, snatched up a brush and quickly bedaubed 
the whole figure. " Bless my soul," exclaimed the painter, 
leaping forward, " what have you done ?" " Only saved your 
life," replied the gentleman, describing the danger. Sir James 
grumbled as he muttered his thanks. 

By far the most interesting places in the whole cathedral, 
are the crypts and the ground floor, containing the monuments 
and graves of many illustrious men. Most of the monuments are 
beautiful works of art by Chantrey, and Bacon, and Flaxman, 
and other of Britain's first artists. Those of Howard, the 
philanthropist ; of Samuel Johnson, " the gravest preceptor of 
virtue, and a singular example of the best of men;" of Sir 
Christopher Wren — a plain marble slab, with its inscription, 
" Lector, si monumentum requieris, circumspice !" of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds ; Bishop Heber, and some others, are in keeping with 
the sacredness of the place. But although beautiful, the 
many monuments to generals and admirals, with their sounding 
inscriptions of glory and splendid achievements, with laurels 
trimming the unsheathed sword, and angels hovering above to 
bear the fleeting soul to heaven — these, which form, by far, the 
largest part of the monuments, struck me painfully as being 
out of place in a temple devoted to Him whose life was an illus- 
tration of humanity, whose mission was peace and good-will to 



36 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

all men, and T\ho, even in death, bestowed his blessing on his 
eneniies. Such things destroy the emotions of reverence and 
awe which should ever envelop a place of worship ; in proof 
of which, although I have entered many churches actuated by 
merely a cold curiosity, I never examined one so calmly and 
mechanically in my life as this almost sublime structure. The 
latest addition to the distinguished graves here, is that of the 
Duke of Wellington. The corpse is still lying in the vault ; 
when his monument is completed it will be interred in the nave 
immediately in front of the choir, between the tombs of Nelson 
and Cornwallis. 

One of the most beautiful churches in the city is St. Saviour's, 
in Southwark, which is among the finest specimens of early 
English architecture in London. It is interesting, also, as con- 
taining the tombs of the poets Gower, Fletcher, the literary 
associate of Beaumont, and Massinger, together with those of 
Sir Edward Dyer, and Edmund Shakspeare, player — the 
brother of the poet. The Temple Church, originally the 
chapel of the Knights Templars, is another remarkable edifice ; 
and here, too, are buried many distinguished characters — law- 
yers and statesmen generally, though in the burial ground east 
of the choir, lies the undistinguished grave of Oliver Gold- 
smith. "Poor Goldy !" your bust is in Westminster Abbey, 
but your body is as well here, in this quiet corner, which I 
shall remember long after I shall have forgotten St. Paul's and 
its sculptured warriors ! 

St. Mary-le-Bow, in Cheapside, is another fine church, " one 
of W^ren's masterpieces." The Bow bells have long been 
famous ; their ringing lives in the memories of our nursery 
ballads, and in our maturer recollections of Beaumont and 
Fletcher, and Alexander Pope. Its antiquity and associations 
form its chief attractions, however. Many other similar chapels 
have I visited, listening t-o the sweet chanting and the glo- 
rious swell of the organ during service ; and even more fre- 
quently wandering alone among the dusty tombs, looking at 
headless effigies of knights in armor, crumbling stone bishops, 
and epitaphed churchwardens. Sometimes a broken slab would 
chronicle the death of some young man or maid, who died in 



Westminster Abbey. 37 

the springtime of life, and the date of their burial would be 
hundreds of years ago ; and over such graves have I especiallj 
loved to watch, thinking of the hopeful and loving hearts, and 
perhaps beautiful forms, which the years of centuries have 
claimed ; over whose graves tears were shed by eyes now long 
closed in their turn ; and if such thoughts have ever made me 
sad, they have not been without their lessons, and their conso- 
lations. But, my friend, let us shake all meaner dust from our 
feet, and let us enter together 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

Through a narrow doorway in the corner dedicated to and 
sanctified by England's greatest poets, the visitor enters West- 
minster Abbey. I had contemplated the exterior on several 
occasions before I visited the interior. It was a quiet morning 
when I entered the first time, actuated neither by curiosity nor 
religion ; feeling neither the cold spirit of dilettantism, with 
which I had wandered through St. Paul's, nor the spirit of 
worship with which I have visited other such places. 

On entering, I felt myself filled with an awe that super- 
seded all curiosity, and a reverence allied to devotion. The 
view from the Poet's Corner expands into infinity ; space is 
lost in the endless mazes of the architecture ; the eye wanders 
confused over the profusion of barbaric magnificence — the 
dusky ceilings, dim windows, lofty colonnades, and fretted 
arches, and the imagination creates what is not to be seen ; 
while the contemplation of the tombs of the great men around 
impresses one with a melancholy intensity of feeling which I, at 
least, never before experienced. I bowed my uncovered head 
before the awful genius of the place, for I felt that I indeed 
was nothing. I read the inscription on the tomb of Spenser, 
author of the "Faerie Queen," and thought of the strange 
paradox of life — a duchess raising a monument over a man 
who was supposed to have died "for lack of bread." Milton, 
and Chaucer, and Dryden, and many others who have taught 
in song what they learned in suffering, all received my involun- 
tary homage. I stood also on the grave of Sheridan, and 
4 



38 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

gazed at the monument of Shakspearc ; and I read the irreve- 
rent epitaph of Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera," 

*' Life is a jest, and all things show it, 
I thought so once, but now I know it." 

Near by, also, I saw the monument to David Garrick, which 
Charles Lamb justly censures for its frivolous appearance and 
extravagant epitaph. Here, too, there is a small stone in- 
scribed, "0, rare Ben Jonson." The poet, I was told, is 
buried here, standing on his feet, and the inscription is said to 
have been done "at the charge of Jack Young," who, walking 
here when the grave was being covered, gave the fellow eighteen 
pence to cut it. The latest monument that has been erected is 
a marble bust of Southey. I looked in vain for memorials of 
many of his great contemporaries. I had walked here for a 
time, when "a man in black," like him who appeared to Gold- 
smith's " Citizen of the World," approached, and receiving the 
demanded tribute of a sixpence, led me through the gloomy 
and picturesque sacella — the sepulchral chapels, where are the 
tombs of England's mightiest kings and lords. I here contem- 
plated the effigies in brass and stone of noble knights and ladies, 
who conquered cities, and laid siege to hearts, centuries ago. 
The guide pointed to the tomb of King Edward's children, 
murdered by Richard III., and to the decayed wooden effigy 
of Henry V., concerning which old chronicles relate that, 
" about the latter end of Kinge Henry YIII., the head of the 
Kinge's image, being of massie silver, was broken off, and 
carried cleane awaie." It is still without a head, and stripped 
also of the silver plates which once covered it. Every chapel 
disclosed some new beauty, or called to light some hidden 
memory. To examine the minor curiosities — the mosaic pave- 
ments, the coronation, chairs, the quaint monuments of forgotten 
names — or to describe them, would be a labor interesting to the 
antiquary alone. After looking at an infinity of such, and 
listening to the dull explanations of the guide until my mind 
was weary of them, we entered the magnificent chapel of 
Henry VII. — "one of the stateliest and daintiest in Europe," 



Westminster Abbey. 39 

as Lord Bacon said of the tomb it contains. Never, before I 
stood in this beautiful chamber, did I feel the full loveliness 
and grandeur of the gothic architecture — " a symbolical ex- 
pression of the infinite," as Coleridge well calls it. A prodigy 
of art is here ; the walls are wrought into universal ornament, 
and the lofty roof, 

" Equally poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, 
Where light and shade repose" — 

is wonderful. Stone is here made to assume the lightness and 
aeriality of a magic delusion. It reminded me of the fretted 
interior of some grand cavern, where the stalactites, infinite in 
variety, possess a perfect unity of efi'ect. The brazen tomb in 
the centre, is worthy of the chapel ; no king is entombed in a 
more gorgeous one. Passing hence into the east aisle of the 
north transept, I saw many fine works of art ; two of which, at 
least, deserve some notice. One is a monument to Mr. and 
Mrs. Nightingale, sculptured by Roubilliac ; the base of it is 
represented by a tomb, throwing open its marble doors, and a 
sheeted skeleton protruding out is seen launching his dart at 
the lady, who has sunk afi"righted into her husband's arms. 
The efi'ect is terrible, and the grim delineation of Death, and 
the sweet beauty of the lady, live in the memory like the recol- 
lection of an awful dream. Near this is a monument to Sir 
Francis Vere ; four knights kneeling support on their shoulders a 
table on which lie the several parts of a complete suit of armor ; 
beneath is the recumbent figure of Sir Francis himself. It is 
related that when Roubilliac was at work here, he was found one 
day by the abbey mason, standing with his arms folded, and 
his looks fixed on one of the knightly figures, which support 
this monument. As Gaypere approached, the enthusiastic 
Frenchman laid his hand on his shoulder, and whispered 
<' Hush, he will speak soon !" and it is not difficult to believe 
that he really expected it. 

The guide now left, and I was at liberty to wander alone in 
the other parts of the building, which contain the finest and 
the most modern of the monuments. Here is that of poor 
Major Andr^, remarkable for the mutilation it has thrice under- 



40 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

gone — some enthusiastic patriots having thus often broken off 
and carried away the head of the jfigure of Washington in the 
has relief. Here are the statues of England's greatest states- 
men and warriors ; here Bacon has given 

" More than female beauty to a stone, 
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips." 

Here, too, lie many " celebrated for nothing but being 
knocked on the head," and many celebrated for nothing at all ; 
but the magnificent tombs of insignificant persons, and the 
mighty names on humble stones, both lend a grandeur to the 
place. I next wandered through the Jerusalem Chamber, cele- 
brated by Shakspeare as the place where Harry the Fourth 
died ; and sat down on the stone pavement of the quiet cloisters. 
It was now in the afternoon, and the sun cast the shadow of 
the old arches half way across the yard. All was perfectly 
silent ; no one was present save myself and a lady amateur, 
who was sketching a ruined arch in a remote corner. I 
attempted to read my Shakspeare, but my mind was too much 
engrossed with its own dreams. Suddenly the deep peal of the 
organ within the abbey fell softly on my ear, and the swelling 
voices of the choir commenced chanting. So thick were the 
walls that the music was heard but indistinctly — it sounded afar 
off, and the intensity with which I had to listen to catch all the 
notes, added to the dream-like pleasure it excited. It seemed 
as if the old choristers of the abbey were performing once 
more their sublime and simple " Kyrie Eleison." In Words- 
worth's lines — 

"Every stone was kissed 
By sound or ghost of sound, in mazy strife, 
Ileart-thrilling strains, that cast before the eye 
Of the devout a veil of ecstasy V 

Many times have I returned to the same spot, and listened to 
the same melody, until I have ceased to wonder at the love of 
seclusion in those old monks who built this and similar retreats. 
In concluding this imperfect sketch of the "finest church 
in England," I feel I can do no better than to quote the 
description by Addison of the emotions such resorts produce : — 



Parlez-vous Anglais? 41 

<< Wlien I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of 
envj dies in me ; ■when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, 
every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with the grief 
of parents on a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion ; 
when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the 
vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow ; 
when I see kings lying by those who deposed them — when I 
consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that 
divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect 
with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, 
and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the 
tombs — of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred 
years ago, I consider that great day, when we shall all of us be 
contemporaries, and make our appearance together." 

PARLEZ-VOUS ANGLAIS ? 

London enchanted me. It w'as four weeks before I could 
make up my mind to leave it. When I did, it was with regret. 
The wnlderness of houses that confused my head, and the soli- 
tude that weighed upon my heart at first, had lost their influ- 
ence upon me. The confusion that remained was a maze of 
revolving delights ; the solitude, an interregnum of self-sought 
quiet to muse over the past, and meditate on coming pleasure. 
Is it strange, then, that I pledge to-night, in a glass dipped 
from the Rhine, the city of the Thames ? I passed rapidly over 
a beautiful country, fragrant with happiness and the odors of 
flowers, on my route to Dover. I welcomed Shakspeare's cliff", 
and the sea that beat against its base, by spouting King Lear 
and Childe Harold, which I ceased doing, however, with but 
little regret, when the stealthy waiter at the inn placed my 
dinner before me. About twelve o'clock on the very dark night 
following, I groped my way after the porter to the steamboat 
that was to bear me to Ostend. I found it a small dirty aff"air, 
crowded with passengers, full of anticipations of sea-sickness, 
which the rather stormy night suggested. At one o'clock we 
left, and soon after, the anticipations of some of the passengers 

being in a fair state of realization, I left the cabin, and with a 
4 * 



42 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

young American, whom I found on board, and my cigar, I 
wrapped my cloak around me and sought the deck. The east 
was ah-eady tinged with the roses of morning, when I took my 
seat under the lee of the wheel-house to avoid the spray, which flew 
completely over the vessel. The waves and winds were both high, 
yet we skimmed along like a sea bird. The emotion they pro- 
duced in me was not entirely as sublime, as when on the im- 
mense ship in the middle of the Atlantic I had gazed on their 
grandeur, — though I felt the passionate truth of Byron's lines, 
as I repeated, 

" Once more upon tbe waters I yet once more 
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider," 

The upheaving in the cabin being much more disagreeable 
to me than that of the "bosom of the deep," I placed 
a coil of' rope beneath my head, and lay down upon the deck, 
where the waves soon rocked me to slumber. When I awoke, 
it was broad daylight. Worn passengers were wandering up 
and down, looking most desolately forlorn ; or rather, as if their 
only hope was in the land we were rapidly approaching. I am 
afraid I made a mortal enemy of a pallid Englishman by offer- 
ing him a cigar. When the boat touched the pier, a noisy con- 
fusion of tongues resulted immediately, in which a linguist 
might have distinguished a half-dozen different languages at 
least. Our passports and luggage were here taken from us, 
and conveyed to the custom-house to be examined and vised. 
As the cars were about starting, every one was in a hurry. 
My gallantry ladened me with a shawl and an old lady — one on 
each arm — so I was well nigh late. The last bell was ringing 
when I arrived at the custom-house, and the railway depot was 
some distance off. I hastily gave the shawl and the old lady 
to a commissionnaire, and hurried to see about my luggage and 
passport. A porter some distance ahead was carrying both to 
the depot. I ran after and caught him, and was about to re- 
ward him, when I found he had somebody else's passport ; I 
looked at it — it was the old lady's. Breathless I ran back. 
" This is not my passport !" I exclaimed to the officer. 



Bruges. 43 

« Vas?" said he. 

" Donnez-moi mon passeport /"I cried out. 

" Fij'S ?" said the wondering official. 

" Grieben sie mir mein passeport !" I shrieked in an unknown 
dialect, intended for Dutch. 

" Vasf said the green coat with red worsted epaulets. 

^'^ Parlez-vous Anglais f I yelled to some one near me. 
^^ Parlez-vous Anglais?" to a man in uniform, entering the 
door. 

"Yaw!" said he; " Ish dish your passeport? I look for 
you everywhere. You better run quick ; the railway will start 
already." 

I saAv at once I had been wasting my time talking to the 
wrong official ; who, or what he was. Heaven knows. I ran off 
as fast as I could for the cars. They were just starting. I 
seized my smaller luggage, gave the porter a couple of francs 
too much, in my hurry, and took my seat, just as the cars 
rolled out of the depot. 

"Alas !" said I to myself, as I wiped the perspiration from 
my forehead, " Parlez-vous Anglais ! — I wish I could paries 
something else." 

BRUGES. 

My first day in Belgium was destined to be an unfortunate 
one. I had no sooner recovered my breath and my mental 
equilibriuUi, from the haste in which I had arrived, when I 
commenced an observation of my fellow-passengers in the car. 
It was gorgeously fitted up, and, half hidden in the green and 
gold velvet and silk of the cushions and drapery in the corner, 
sat a most beautiful Flemish girl, whose peach-like cheek and 
rich auburn tresses found a fitting background in the green hang- 
ings of the window. She looked like the model of one of 
Rubens's best figures, and I, who had worshipped the shadow, 
could not do otherwise than admire the reality. I overheard 
her speaking English to an excessively nice old gentleman who 
accompanied her, and I determined at once to find out, by 
making her acquaintance, how much she knew of that delight- 
ful tongue, I had a little basket of strawberries, buried in 



44 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

roses, and rich and juicy in appearance as her own lips, that I 
had purchased as I ran to the cars ; these, thought I, shall in- 
troduce me. I had just studied out a romantic trifle, in the 
way of compliment, with which I was about to preface mj pre- 
sent, and which, I have no doubt, would have captivated her 
entirely, had I found an opportunity of uttering it. But unfor- 
tunately, just as I was about to do so, and then to follow my 
success up by taking the seat immediately beside her, it was 
monopolized by a filthy German Jew, with a long red beard, 
sprinkled with snuff. Venus eclipsed by the Great Bear ! said 
I to myself, hoping to find consolation by saying something 
severe. I ate my strawberries myself; for afterwards I only 
saw a small part of her nose, extending beyond the beard, but 
when he moved she vanished altogether. 

The scenery between Ostend and Bruges interested me more 
on account of its novelty than its beauty, though it did not 
lack the latter at all, cut up as it was by dykes and canals, and 
made picturesque by quaint cottages and curious windmills. More 
than one Ruysdael and Paul Potter picture were past. Another 
thing which made it beautiful was the cultivation of flowers 
everywhere. There was not a guide-post but was hidden in 
graceful festoons, while the vacant space on either side of the 
road Avas laid out into beds, where beautiful and fragrant plants 
were growing. For the first time in my life I regretted the 
railway was so short, when I left it at the ancient town of 
Bruges. I went immediately to the hotel Fleur de Bid, a plea- 
sant inn, with a large hall adorned with plaster casts of very 
Flemish-looking Cupids. I visited before dinner the " belfry 
old and brown," celebrated by Longfellow, and gazed for nearly 
half the morning from its top on the landscape which lay << like 
a shield embossed with silver" far around me. I took some 
refreshment in an estaminet, which stands on the site of the prison 
in which the Emperor Maximilian was once confined by his 
rebellious subjects ; and another in a house inhabited by Charles 
11. during his exile from England. In the afternoon I visited 
the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice— where I saw the 
famous carved oaken mantel-piece, including figures as large as 
life of Charles V., Mary of Burgundy, and some half-dozen 



Bruges. 45 

other princes and queens — and the Cathedral of Notre Dame, 
with its statue of the Virgin and Christ, by Michael Angelo. 
In the Hospital of St. John I saw some very rare, and a few 
good pictures. Beggars — the lame, halt, and blind — dogged us 
everywhere, and consumed several supplies of sous and centimes. 
They were only troublesome on account of their exceeding 
ugliness, however, for the copper coin here seems to have been 
made especially for the use of beggars — a handful of it is worth 
but little. 

A monkish Latin proverb has declared Bruges celebrated for 
^^formos/.spueUis," a reputation, I am sorry to say, that is far 
from being justified at present. Yet she is in other things, as 
Southey beautifully writes, " worthy of her ancient fame." 

" The season of her splendor has gone by, 
Yet everywhere its monuments remain." 

Her present desolation — the grass growing in the streets, 
and the quiet hanging over her palaces and cathedrals, are pro- 
ductive of a pleasing kind of reverie in the beholder, half sad, 
half meditative. I walked through the streets at mid-day, 
when the clouds only threw a shadoAV on the pavement, and in 
their whole length no living being could be seen, save two old 
women gossipping in a low tone in the middle of the way, and a 
solitary child, playing by herself under an arched court. In 
the very market place where people were buying and selling, 
silence seemed to reign for ever ; and when a cock broke the 
stillness by a prolonged crow, the effect was almost startling. 
I wandered on through the place before the Hotel de Ville, 
where quiet old men sat on the benches under the trees, seem- 
ingly no more alive than the old statue of John Van Eyck, in 
the centre of the square. I entered the grand place in front 
of " Das Ilalles ;" here ugly bare-legged old women, with appa- 
rently but one garment, rattled along in their wooden shoes, 
and prettier younger ones, with blue woollen stockings, all 
dressed alike, with white caps and dark hooded cloaks, passed 
to and fro over the square. Some poor old man would occasion- 
ally beg a sou ^^ pow botre," or would offer himself in broken 
English as a commissionnaire. Milk-maids of all ages, with their 



4G European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

pails hung to a yoke on their shoulders, jogged by every now 
and then. In the centre of the place, stood a few cabs, with 
poor sleepy-looking horses attached to them, and out of the 
open doors of each protruded a pair of legs, elevated at an 
angle of forty degrees, suggesting the possibility of the drivers 
somnolent. Ranged before the " Halles" were several sentry 
boxes, before each of which a small soldier, with an immense 
moustache, blue coat and red worsted epaulets, stood like an 
ugly statue, so intent on looking before him, that one might 
easily have robbed him of his knapsack, without his ever know- 
ing it. Other soldiers lounged idly about in the shade, saluti'jg 
respectfully, as they passed, those best fed and kept inhabitants 
of all continental cities — the clergy. Li the estaminets around 
the Place, the officers might be seen, smoking and drinking, 
and ever and anon, with cues in their hands, leaning excited 
over the billiard table. I went to the Academy of Design, 
and was guided through the apartments by a very little old 
woman, who sat down silently and continued her knitting in 
every place where I lingered. In the Palais de Justice, a 
younger and quite handsome woman conducted me to see the 
famous mantel-piece ; but in the Belfry, and every other place 
I visited, I saw similar beings to the guide at the Academy — 
all little, all old and ugly, and dried up. They looked like 
revired mummies, come into the world again to earn a half franc 
to get their souls out of purgatory. The artistic curiosities of 
the city are the works of the brothers Van Eyck, the invent- 
ors of oil painting, and of Hans Hemling. By the former 
there are some original portraits and religious pictures ; and by 
the latter a painting of the martyrdom of St. Ilippolytus, torn 
to pieces by horses, in the Cathedral of St. Sauveur ; and a 
Holy Family and the reliquary of Sta. Ursula, in St. John's 
Hospital. The reliquary is a wooden coffer, containing the 
arm of the saint, and painted with subjects from the legend of 
eleven thousand virgins, who were martyred at Cologne. There 
are also a few Vandykes, and some singular pictures by 
Teniers. 

For the superstitious are preserved the arm of the above- 
mentioned St. Ursula, and some drops of our Saviour's blood, 



The Glove of Chakles V. 47 

deposited in a rich silver-gilt shrine, splendidly jewelled and 
enamelled. For those who love to dream of the past, and take 
lessons from its history, the monuments of Charles the Bold, 
and of Mary of Burgundy, the Croenburg, Das Halles, and the 
Cathedrals, all furnish abundance of the stuff which dreams are 
made of. I am fond of dreaming, and I have never found a 
more fitting city for it, full of interest and inactivity, sunshine 
and silence ; the very atmosphere is pregnant with grand memo- 
ries, while every moss-covered stone is redolent alike of the 
musty odor and the obscure history of centuries. I may never 
see it again ; I have no friends there ; even the beggar to whom 
I gave a shilling in mistake for a sou, has forgotten me by this 
time. Yet I could have wished to remain there longer ; and 
when in other parts of the world I may be borne down by dis- 
appointment or fatigued with success — when the nineteenth 
century w^hirls around me, and my weary soul longs for repose — 
then, fair Bruges, I shall then remember thee ! 

THE GLOVE OF CHARLES V. 

When the Duke of Alva advised the Emperor Charles V. to 
raze the city of Ghent to the ground, in retribution for the 
treachery and rebellion of its inhabitants, Charles took him to 
the summit of the belfry, and showing him the vast and beau- 
tiful city spread out before him, and the homes of its 175,000 
souls, asked : " Combien il fallait de peaux d'Espagne pour 
faire un gant de cette grandeur f — " IIow many skins of 
Spanish leather Avould it take to make such a glove?" I was 
reminded of this just rebuke when I wandered through its 
beautiful streets, filled with grand old houses and cathedrals, 
even now, though the season of its magnificence is over. 
It is, however, at present increasing in commercial prosperity, 
and possesses, in consequence, but little of that dreamy quiet 
and Lethean indolence of appearance that characterizes its 
ancient enemy and ally — Bruges. The English call it the 
Belgic Manchester, and the frequent chimneys, mingling the 
utile cum dulce, so that elegant Corinthian pillars are seen 



48 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

vomiting forth the black smoke of cotton mills, favor the truth 
of the simile. 

I was no little amused in my promenade here, with the cha- 
racteristics of the bourgeoisie in the streets, all of whom were 
dressed in excellent, if not very graceful style. JSTotAvithstand- 
ing the heat of the weather, all the women wore large cloaks 
of a very fine black cloth, and I saw many a fair face and sunny 
curl half hidden in the depths of the hood. I saw here one of 
the most amusing races ever run, both parties having an equal 
division of advantages and disadvantages. It was between a 
woman, Avho had stolen a tub, and the owner in pursuit ; it was 
petticoats versus pantaloons, slippers against wooden shoes, and 
ten pounds of tub against fifty of stomach. The pursuer was 
a small fat man, and his awkward run in his rattling shoes was 
most laughable. The woman at length threw the tub into a 
cellar and made her escape. A procession passed, and I 
inquired of a person, in French, Avhat it was, but he could not 
understand anything except the Flemish ^jatois. " One might 
as well be deaf and dumb at once," I muttered as I bowed him 
a disappointed farewell. "Not so," said an Englishman who 
overheard me; "yonder procession is formed entirely of deaf 
mutes." 1 thanked him for his courteous rebuke, and changed 
my opinion incontinently. Soon after a valet de place approached 
and insisted on my accepting his services. I had already 
engaged one, so I gave that as an excuse to get rid of him. 
" Oh !" said the fellow, "I know dat, but he can't come, he is 
engoge vis one milor ; he told me to come and get you." 
" Indeed !" I replied, seeing the object of the dialogue approach ; 
"as he is here, I will see about it." The imaginative guide 
just then recollected that he had to accompany an English 
family somewhere, and left me precipitately. 

A singular custom is prevalent here in regard to weddings, 
which are celebrated altogether in the evening, at one of the 
principal dancing-houses, which stands just out of the town 
under the trees on the coupure or canal. I went to one of these 
celebrtitions on the first evening after my arrival. I found the 
dancing-hall a large and quite handsome apartment, resembling 
the salle-d-7nanger of one of our watering-place hotels, with an 



The Glove of Charles V. 49 

elevated platform on one side, where a very excellent band was 
performing waltzes and quadrilles. The price of admission, 
which included that of a large glass of beer, was a handful of 
unmentionable coin, worth altogether about one dime. When 
I entered, although the hall was well lighted, it was some time 
before my eyes could penetrate the thick atmosphere, redolent 
with the smoke of pipes and the fumes of beer. In the centre 
of the room a large number were Avaltzing, while ranged around 
on an elevation were placed numerous tables, at which the wall 
flowers generally, and those who were weary of dancing, were 
busily engaged consuming their liquor and tobacco. The com- 
pany was perhaps not very select, and far from aristocratic, 
yet St. James's might boast of far less enjoyment than I here 
Avitnessed. As the lager mounted into their heads, the fun 
grew fast and furious, and the original " Crcrman' was waltzed 
with a reckless rapidity of motion and confusion of whirl which 
would have turned the heads of half the fashionable devotees 
to this dance who in late seasons have frequented Newport and 
Niagara — many of whom I once thought had no brains to be 
affected. 

One of the most interesting places in Ghent is the MarchS 
au Vendredi, a square, now, as the name indicates, used as a 
market-place. Once it was the place of inauguration for the 
Counts of Flanders, and the theatre in which many a magnifi- 
cent drama and fearful tragedy has been performed. Here, 
many years ago, the weavers, headed by Jacques Van Artevelde, 
fought a faction of the fullers, the results of which contest 
were the bloody corpses of 1500 citizens left in the square. 
Here, too, Philip Van Artevelde, the son of Jacques, and the 
hero of Henry Taylor's drama, was saluted Ruwaert, or Pro- 
tector of Ghent ; and at a later period, when the infamous 
Alva introduced the inquisition here, many were burnt in this 
same square. It is surrounded with houses of the Spanish 
datCj and in one corner stands a tOM'er of a much earlier period, 
in the belfry of which was the bell that rung out the alarm, 
when the citizens had cause to think their liberties had been 
infringed. Vei-y few comedies have taken place in this square, 
though now, thank Heaven ! harmless old women sell cabbages 
5 



50 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

in it every Friday. Everything in this neighborhood is either 
grand or warlike in its character.. In a street near by stands 
Be dulle Griete, an enormous cannon, made of bars of ham- 
mered iron, bound together with rings. It is eighteen feet 
lono- and ten in circumference, and is more than five hundred 
years old, having been made in the days of Philip le Bon. It 
has been used but seldom, and most likely will never be again. 

The Hotel de Ville, in this neighborhood also, is a most 
beautiful building, around which are clustered many of the 
most interesting associations of Ghent. Its two faQades are of 
different periods. The newest has columns of three different 
orders ; the oldest is a mixture of the French flamboyant with 
the English Tudor-Gothic styles, and defaced as it is by time 
and weather, it is still extremely rich in appearance. 

The churches here disappointed me. The Cathedral, it is 
true, is very splendid, and contains some rare works of art by 
Francis Porbus and the brothers Van Eyck. The sculptures, 
too, are good, especially those of the pulpit, and those in wood 
generally. I was much more interested, however, with some 
of the less known and noticed of the curiosities. Near the 
belfry is the minor prison of the city, situated on the site of an 
old Roman Keep, illustrious for an instance of filial piety, which 
a marble sculpture still commemorates. Once on a time, an old 
man, says the legend, was here confined, condemned to die of 
starvation ; but his daughter, a fair young mother, gained daily 
access to him, and gave him through the bars her own breast 
to suckle. The old man not dying as was anticipated, the 
judges inquired into the matter ; and learning from the girl 
herself of her remarkable virtue and devotion, rewarded it with 
her father's pardon. 

My last reminiscence of this place is a singular one. I was 
strolling through the queer old streets one evening at dusk, 
looking at the workmen returning from their labors, and their 
wives and children awaiting their approach at every threshold ; 
when suddenly and softly the vesper bells of the Beguine Con- 
vent rang out their devotional peal on the still air, awakening 
a curiosity I had forgotten — to witness their worship. So call- 
ing a Yoiture, I was set down in a short time at the chapel door. 



The Glove of Charles V. 51 

I gazed for a few moments around the court, "which was sur- 
rounded by rows of little houses all alike, bearing each a dedi- 
cation to some saint on the portals, and in which a number of 
the nuns resided ; and then entered. 

The service had just commenced ; and as the organ raised 
its deep bass to Heaven, the voices of the choir, now loud and 
apparently near, and then faint as if afar off, seemed as if sung 
by men and echoed by angels. The seven hundred aged vir- 
gins, all absorbed in their prayers, appeared much too old and 
ugly to be absorbed in anything else. Though I did not feel 
this then, when I saw them with their faces covered, engaged 
in their devotions ; and if I had, I could only have thought of 
their sincere earnest religion, of their unobtrusive charity, and 
of the many sick couches at the hospitals and elsewhere their 
presence has blessed with comfort and attention. Peace be 
with you, gentle dames ! I shall ever preserve with pleasant 
memories the little souvenirs with which you rewarded ray hum- 
ble tribute to funds, which so well employed can never be too 
extensive. 



IV. 

RUBENS. 

Not the least tiling that the artist-student learns, when he 
visits the continent for the first time, is a knowledge of the 
true dignity of art. Here he observes cities and towns, once 
wealthy and powerful, now deriving their chief support and only 
importance from the capital of painters, who once were, per- 
haps, permitted to starve in them. An example of this up to 
a very late period, when commerce and manufactures were, in a 
degree, resumed, was Antwerp — the city of Peter Paul Rubens, 
who even now with his name encircles half the attractions of the 
town ; and whom the publicans of the place, to say nothing of the 
commissionnaires, cab-drivers, print-sellers, and citizens gene- 
rally, should, and I believe partially do, consider as a guardian 
divinity. His statue in the Place Verte, near the Cathedral, 
was nearly the first object I saw in the city, and everything 
here is full of associations of him. 

Coming from Ghent and Bruges, Antwerp appeared far less 
desolate than it otherwise would, notwithstanding that it has, 
in the last few years, recovered a great part of its prosperity. 
It is still a fine dreamy old place ; and I can well conceive that, 
with agreeable friends, a person could enjoy himself there very 
well. I entered it early in the morning ; so early that the 
shops were still closed, and the rays of the morning sun fell 
aslant on the tall steeple of the Cathedral, — apropos of which 
steeple, so delicate and beautiful in its fine Gothic carvings, 
minute, yet grand from the perfect unity of the whole, it is 
said that Charles V. observed " it deserved to be kept in a 
case!" Napoleon also seems to have imitated the bathos of 
his illustrious predecessor, and compared it to 3IechUn lace ! 
Such platitudes would have much rather befitted the mouths of 
cockney shop-keepers, and seems especially surprising in Napo- 
leon. AVhen I emerged from the gateway of the Hotel St. 
Antoine, after having selected my room and arranged my 



Rubens. 53 

toilette, I looked again at the spire, and notwithstanding my 
limbs still ached with the remembrance of similar exploits, I 
resolved to visit the top at once. I paid my franc ; and when 
stopping to take breath, three hundred steep steps up a dark 
tower, the guide encouraged me with the information that I 
was nearly half way to the top, I felt like condemning the folly 
that induced me to take this step of so many steps ; but I 
labored on, feeling myself to be a martyr to the Beautiful, My 
vexation left mo entirely at the top ; and as the cool morning 
breeze kissed my face, which was rather red from my exertions, 
I enjoyed a buoyancy of spirits, and a delightful freedom of 
thought, such as one feels but rarely, save on the top of high 
mountains, or at sea during a twelve-knot gale. If the spectacle 
from the summi« of the belfry of Bruges was beautiful, this was 
sublime. Far on the circle of the horizon, the towers of Ber- 
gen op Zoom, Flushing, Breda, Brussels, and Ghent appeared ; 
while the nearer distance, beautiful with waving woods, quaint 
farm-houses, green fields, -villages, and windmills, all together 
formed a scene of the most perfect loveliness. Looking down 
upon it, the landscape lost the monotonous aspect of its entire 
level ; and indeed this characteristic only heightened its beauty, 
for it rendered apparent every winding of the magnificent 
Schelde, as for many a mile it calmly flowed on toward the sea, 
covered with the white sails of a thousand boats. The increas- 
ing noise of commencing business in the city below me, and 
some imperative intimations of appetite, induced me to descend 
to breakfast ; which I did with philosophical calmness, resting 
on every hundredth step of the descent. 

The interior of the Cathedral, which, resisting the courteous 
oflfers of countless commissionnaires, I visited alone, is magnifi- 
cent. The lofty dome, and stained-glass windows ; the rich 
paintings and elaborately-carved Gothic stalls and confessionals ; 
the brilliant shrines and dim religious atmosphere pervading 
the whole, excite the mind to a pitch of awe and admiration 
which causes wonder to cease at the devotional bigotry of the 
most ignorant worshippers, to whom the glare and glory supply 
the place of that just knowdedge of God, himself, which leads 
the intelligent Christian to adore. It is art more than assist- 
5* 



■34 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

ing ; it is art commanding worship. Hung around the walls, 
and over the high altar, are several fine pictures bj Rubens and 
other distinguished artists. But the glory of the church and 
of the city are the "Elevation" and "Descent" of the cross — 
the master-pieces of the great Fleming — which, owing to some 
repairs at present taking place within the Cathedral, are on 
exhibition in a small room on the exterior. I but echo the 
admiration of every visitor to Antwerp, when I declare these 
pictures to be the grandest I have ever seen, even though ill 
restored and retouched in some parts. Until I saw them, I 
had given Rubens credit for only a part of his manifold excel- 
lencies — that of his rich coloring and surpassing voluptuous- 
ness — now I feel the poetry, the great big soul, that was in him. 
Both figures of Christ in these paintings are divine. The 
agony of the Saviour, swaying from the cross to which he is 
nailed, and the cold heaviness of the corpse, when taken down, 
are both perfect. In the first, it is not mere mortal anguish, 
but a sublime resignation triumphing over the most excruciating 
torment — the God overruling and subliming the man. In the 
Descent, the graceful falling of the body, the wounded hands 
and side, the head, torn with thorns, lying upon the shoulder, 
and the half-closed and cold eye — all are perfect as the repre- 
sentation of the man ; while the dignity even in death, the 
beauty of the figure and the attitude, and the sweet, mournful 
expression of Him who was never known to smile, bespeak the 
Divinity as eloquently as the living figure. The other persons 
in the tragedy are almost equally fine. The tearful sorrow of 
the three Maries ; the resignation of the Apostles ; the differ- 
ent attitudes and expressive features of those who are erecting 
and those who are lowering Jesus, are admirable. The slight- 
est accessories of drapery, of dogs and horses, and the child 
turning affrighted from its mother's breast, partake of the same 
perfection as the rest. I have exhausted my superlatives with- 
out doing the pictures half justice. In their composition, Ru- 
bens appears to have sought every difiiculty of attitude and 
expression ; and certainly no one has ever met them with more 
masterly power and assured success. Connected with one of 
these paintings is the well-known story of Vandyke, who was 



Rubens. 55 

a pupil of Rubens when tliey were painted. It is said that 
during the master's absence the picture was thrown down and 
injured ; and the other students, in terror of the consequences, 
selected him, as being the most capable, to repair the injury. 
Rubens surprised the young artist while at work, but Avas 
so well pleased with the excellence of the restoration, that 
he not only forgave the accident, but declared his preference 
of the scholar's work to his own. 

In the museum, I continued my studies of Rubens's pictures ; 
where I saw no less than sixteen of them, and many fine spe- 
cimens of Vandyke, Jordaens, Quentin Matsys, Titian, and 
Teniers, as well as some beautiful modern works. I also passed 
several hours one morning, detained by a heavy shower, in Ru- 
bens's house, and in the pavillion in the garden where he used to 
paint, sitting at the very table where once he sat. (The chair he 
used is preserved in a glass case at the Museum.) There is nothing 
especially noteworthy about the house. The screen and arch- 
way of rich Italian architecture, opening into the garden, was 
designed by the artist himself. The pavillion is in the back of 
the garden, open on all sides, and contains, besides the stone 
table already mentioned, several bad plaster casts ; and the whole 
is surrounded by trees and flowers. I took a rosebud from the 
latter, and a small branch of an arbor vitce, planted by Rubens, 
away with me as a souvenir ; and, simple as they are, they are 
not less valuable to me than many costlier ones. 

The other curiosities of Antwerp have still a reference to 
art, though some of them are of a curious nature. One of 
these in the Church of St. Paul, deserves notice only from a 
singular illustration of a peculiar piety existing on the conti- 
nent. It is a representation of Calvary — an artificial eminence 
raised against the exterior walls of the church, formed appa- 
rently of earth, cinders, rocks, and broken bottles, surmounted 
b}^ a crucifix, and planted with Apostles in stone. The whole 
yard is full of these grotesque statues of saints, angels, pro- 
phets, and patriarchs. At the bottom of the mound is a grotto, 
said to be copied from the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The 
body of Christ is seen through an opening, enveloped in a 
shroud of silk and tinselled muslin ; while around it are afiixed 



56 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

to the wall rude painted boards, representing souls in purgatory 
by the heads of men and women enveloped in flames. On the 
whole, I thought it was a surprising work of art — surprising 
that such a caricature is allowed to exist in a city containing 
the finest Cathedral and most splendid paintings in Northern 
Europe. 

Near the Cathedral, there is an old well, deserving attention 
from the elegant Gothic canopy in iron that covers it — the work 
of Quentin Matsys, the celebrated blacksmith of Antwerp ; who, 
according to the story, which everybody has read, having fallen 
in love with the fair daughter of a painter, adopted her father's 
profession, and attained a bi'illiant reputation as an artist. Of 
course he won, as he deserved, his ladie-love. A plain slab, 
erected at the side of the west door of the Cathedral, comme- 
morates himself and his attachment with a Latin verse : — 

" Connuhialis amor de muliebre Jecii Apellem." 
" Connubial love made the smith Apelles." 

His body is interred at the foot of the spire. 

The last place I visited was the Church of St. Jacques, 
where the- body of Rubens is interred. Above the tomb is an 
altar-piece, painted by himself, containing the portraits of all 
his family. Calmly he rests there, between the graves of his 
two wives ; and soft may his rest continue, until that day when 
he shall be called to the heaven, he, while living, so beautifully 
dreamed of. Such a man needed not the coat-of-arms embla- 
zoned upon his tomb ; though he deserved them, and they are 
well there. Though many prouder ones have crumbled, and 
the names of their bearers been forgotten, since he was placed 
where he now lies, many others shall follow them, but his name 
shall be immortal. 

HOW A woman died. 

In the Museum of Antwerp, I was much interested in view- 
ing several pictures by Cornelius Schut, a pupil of Rubens and 
a friend of Vandyke. Having thus made his artistic acquaint- 



How A Woman Died. 57 

ance, I was mucli Interested in a legend of him told in a very 
amusing Parisian book,* which I have never seen in English, 
though every tale would well bear translation. Hoping that a 
simple sketch, rather than literal rendering of the legend of 
the painter and his wife, may be interesting, I have jotted it 
down among my own experiences. 

Cornelius Schut was a painter and a poet. The poet is for- 
gotten ; but who does not remember the painter's beautiful 
cameos in the flower-wreaths of Seghers ? 

Cornelius Schut, up to the age of seven-and-twenty, had lived 
a little in good society, and a great deal amid very bad — fol- 
lowing, with the reckless ardor of passionate youth, all the wild 
gayeties that the city afforded ; and more than one of his wild 
freaks had struck with astonishment and admiration all the 
pretty girls of Antwerp. An interregnum of work, artistic 
and poetical, succeeded each of his excesses, and he was equally 
pleased with a good stroke of either pen or pencil. 

One evening, according to his custom, he was sitting, pipe in 
mouth, before some mugs of beer and a few friends, in an esta- 
minet of the port ; when suddenly he started up from the 
reverie in which he had been plunged, for it had struck him 
that he was frittering away his heart and his life ; and, with 
the impetuosity characteristic of him, he resolved to alter his 
career immediately. Placing his hat proudly upon his head, 
he stretched forth his hands to his friends, and bade them 
farewell. 

"Where are you going?" they asked. 

'< I do not know," he replied ; " but farewell !" 

" When will you come back ?" said Peter Snagers, laughing. 

" In two years," said Cornelius Schut. 

Cornelius Schut left the tavern, and proceeded directly to 
the home of a dark-eyed girl who loved him. He had not, it 
is true, ever devoted much of his time to loving her ; but he 
determined to make up for lost time. 

"Elizabeth," said he to her, "do you love me for long?" 



* Philosophes et Comediennes, par Arsene Houssaye ; Victor Lecou, 
Paris, 1853. 



58 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

" For ever !" she replied. 

"Prepare to follow me, then; we set off to-morrow." 

"Where are you going?" asked the maiden. 

"What does it matter, if you love me?" said Cornelius. 

Cornelius kissed Elizabeth, and left the house. 

History tells us but little of Elizabeth von Thurenhoudt : 
she was a daughter of Eve, who lived to love and be loved. 

Cornelius Schut next proceeded to his uncle Matthew. 

"Uncle," he said, "it appears that I have a snug place m 
your will. Of all my future fortune, all I claim to-day is my 
friend Wael, your favorite dog. I have received commissions 
for two ' Assumptions,' from the holy fathers. I go to paint 
them in a pious solitude." 

The next day Cornelius Schut, Elizabeth von Thurenhondt, 
and the merry Wael, reached at sunset a little rustic cottage 
on the borders of a wood. The trees threw a beautiful shade 
over them, and the birds sang a sweet welcome to their forest 
home. This cottage was all that Cornelius possessed ; and he 
inquired of Elizabeth whether she would remain there with him 
two years. 

"I will," she replied, with a slight uneasiness. 

I need not relate the history of their two years' residence 
in this sweet solitude ; for each day was but the child and coun 
terpart of the past, and each a dream of love and joy. Cor- 
nelius painted, and composed beautiful verses, which they sang 
together, as they wandered through the woods and meadows of 
an evening. Elizabeth grew each day more beautiful, and Cor- 
nelius Schut was happy. His love, too, had made him a great 
painter ; for his love for art increased with his passion for her. 
That passion is indeed a noble one, that is crowned with the 
roses of the ideal. 

At length the two years were ended. " The Assumptions' 
were completed, and sent to Antwerp ; and with them Corne- 
lius felt he had parted with a part of his own soul. 

"0, heaven!" said Elizabeth ; "he loves me less since the 
pictures are gone." 

Meanwhile, Cornelius was thinking again of his pipe and his 
beer, and his friends in the public-house, who were doubtless 



HowaWomanDied. 59 

there still, enjoying themselves ; and, he knew, with frequent 
wishes for his return. One day, while thinking thus, he took 
Elizabeth by the hand, and said to her : — 

" Do you know that we have lived two years in this manner, 
caring nothing for the world?" 

" I never gave it a thought," she replied. 

"You never thought of it!" said Cornelius Schut, tenderly, 
and kissing her hand ; " and yet to-day we return to Antwerp." 

<' To-day?" said she, turning pale; "Ah! you love me no 
longer!" * 

The artist, moved to tears, exclaimed, with passionate joy, 
"Dearest, would you then consent to remain here another two 
years?" 

"Two centuries, dear Cornelius!" she replied. 

Once more did Elizabeth's heart beat with pleasure ; and as 
Cornelius thought no more of his friends and his tavern, he also 
continued happy. Spring came with her thousand flowers, and 
their rambles were renewed in the woods, and by the side of the 
little crystal brook ; and summer came and went ; and the leaves 
were strewn afar on the autumn winds ; and winter wrapped his 
mantle of snow over the earth ; biit their hearts remained 
warm ; and though the birds Avere gone, yet, when Elizabeth 
sang, Cornelius did not miss them. Time passed, however, and 
the first months of the fourth year of the painter's solitude 
drew near. His friends at Antwerp imagined he was in Italy ; 
for who could believe that a merry fellow like Cornelius Schut 
could thus seclude himself from the world ? 

It was a bright day in the month of August, when Elizabeth, 
looking from the window, saw Daniel Seghers approaching. He 
had been making studies in the woods, and had accidentally 
perceived his old acquaintance, AVael ; and, rightly guessing 
that his master must be near, had followed him home. 

Elizabeth flew from the window, and said to Cornelius Schut, 
"Let us leave instantly;" for, thought she, if he stops, our 
solitude will be invaded. 

But Cornelius had also seen his old friend's approach, so he 
merely embraced her ; and while he Avas embracing her, Daniel 
Seghers entered. 



60 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

Cornelius Schut welcomed his old friend ; they talked about 
Antwerp, and Cornelius sighed. 

" Truly !" said Daniel Seghers, "you must indeed be happy 
here, since you have never been to enjoy your glory. Every 
one admires your 'Assumptions,' and all your friends think you 
are in Rome ; did they know you were here, they would carry 
you off in triumph." 

" Elizabeth," said the painter, when his friend had departed, 
" must we remain here eight months longer, before we return 
to where life is waiting to welcome us with innumerable plea- 



sures 



" Go I" said Elizabeth, vainly endeavoring to restrain her 
tears. 

"Go — go without you — never!" said Cornelius, forgetting 
Antwerp, friends, and fame, and thinking but of her tender 
affection. 

Time passed on, but on leaden wings. They sang no more ; 
and though the birds sang as sweetly as ever, their songs fell 
unheeded on the lovers' ears. Even the faithful Wael became 
afflicted with this general melancholy, and gamboled no more 
as was his wont. 

The days of their retirement at length approached their ter- 
mination ; and so great was the joy of Cornelius, in the antici- 
pation of once more beholding his friends, and sharing their 
gayeties, that he did not perceive that his companion was each 
day groYving paler and wasting away — though, it is true, she 
wept only in secret, and had always the same sweet tender 
smile for him. The evening before their departure, they took 
a farewell walk through their old favorite woodland paths, where 
in their more contented and happier days they found so much 
ecstatic delight. She took his arm and walked on in silence. 
It was a beautiful day in mid-summer ; the ripened crops glis- 
tened in the fields, and the song of the blackbird from the trees 
replied to the sound of the scythe among the yellow corn. 
Elizabeth, touched with the scene, so fragrant with the perfume 
of happy memories, bent down her fair head and wept. 

But the heart of Cornelius was full of the present and the 
future, and he noticed not her silent grief. " What a lovely 



How A Woman Died. 61 

day I" lie exclaimed, enthusiastically. " I Lave a presentiment 
that we shall yet pass many a delicious hour here. Here na- 
ture is full of poetry, and love like ours can never grow old. 
We will return here again ; for, like you, I feel that it is here 
only we' can really enjoy our youth." 

"Then why leave it at all?" asked Elizabeth. "You have 
accustomed me to live alone with you ; the bustle of the cold 
world will frighten away my happiness — once gone, I shall lose 
everything." 

"Foolish girl!" replied her lover; "life, you know, is not 
made up of love alone ; the world has laid down laws we must 
all follow — we must live some little for others." 

" I feel," said Elizabeth, " that I can live for you alone." 

She fell upon her knees on the grass, and with her eyes full 
of tears, and with an utterance confused and indistinct, 
" Dearest !" she said, " are you then resolved to go ?" 

"I must," he replied, embracing "her, and kissing her soft 
tresses. 

" It is well," she said, with a tremulous voice ; " but I shall 
never return." 

The painter did not understand her meaning ; and, chiding 
her for her fears, he made instant preparations for departure. 

The next day Elizabeth, seated at the window, heard Corne- 
lius, in an adjoining apartment, singing the burden of an old 
song which he used to sing when with his companions : — 

** In the wino-shop, alone, can true pleasure be found. 
Fair hostess, my sweet ! bring us drink ; 
Let your little white hands bear the bumpers around, 
For the flowers of joy crown their brink." 

Thus Cornelius sang ; when the poor girl, carried away by 
emotions she could not master, suddenly appeared, with her 
hair dishevelled, and her breast heaving violently, on the thresh- 
hold of the door of the studio. 

"Elizabeth," he asked, running, in surprise and terror, to 
her, "what is the matter?" 

Bitterly smiling upon him, she replied; "What is the mat- 
ter? listen !" and commenced singing the folloAving song, which 
6 



62 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

he had composed for her in the happier days of their 
solitude : — 

I. 
" The daisies that jewel the sward, sweet maid, 
Will fade with the changing year, 
And the snow-wreaths displace the green leaves in the glade, 

When the desolate winter is here ; 
But winter will never aflect mj heart, 
While thou art beside me, dear girl ! as thou art. 



" In my bosom rests a perpetual spring, t 

When thy smile illumines my soul. 
When thy snowy white arms round my neck you fling, 

And o'er my cheek thy dark tresses roll ; 
When thy kisses fall like an April rain. 
Soothing and calming my weary brain. 



" No ! I fear not winter, the storm-king old, 

With his breath of the cold north wind ; 
It will pass without touching my heart with its cold, 

And will leave me Love's flowers behind ; 
All his frost and snows will be lost on me. 
While I kiss thy arm and remain with thee. 

ir. 
"But one winter affrights me, whose icy breath 
Chills my heart with the darkest cold ; 
'Tis the winter of gloomy and loveless death — 

It will cover us up with the wormy mould ; 
And its scentless flowers will sadly wave 
Over our hearts, in the sunless grave. 

T. 

" This winter will freeze our souls, my love ! 

And will silence Love's minstrelsy ; 
Yet the daisies that bloomed on the earth above. 

Which thou madest a heaven to me. 
We will love still, and forget them never. 
Though we lie in our graves for ever and ever." 

When she had concluded the song, Elizabeth fell fainting into 
her lover's arms — she had thrown all her life into her voice. 
He carried her to the window, that she might breathe the 



Brussels. 63 

fresh morning air. She opened her eyes, and said, " Farewell! 
jour heart beats no longer at that song — all is over. The most 
sensitive man does not place all his existence in love ; woman 
alone can live and die in the heart." Again she murmured the 
words of the song : — 

*' But one winter affrights me " 

Her voice ceased before the stanza was concluded, and Cor- 
nelius bore in his arms a corpse. 

They buried her in the forest, beneath a favorite old oak ; 
and in the same grave did Cornelius Schut bury all hopes of 
happiness on earth. He still lingered around the spot ; and 
though his uncle Matthew and his early friends besought him 
to return to Antwerp, he rejected all their entreaties until the 
flowers bloomed over her grave. Her remembrance haunted 
him ever — not as the blooming maiden, who had followed him 
from home years ago, and who had laughingly wandered, and 
lovingly lived with him in that fair woodland cottage — but as 
she had appeared, pale and in despair, when she died in his arms. 

Months thus passed by; when one morning he observed, with 
melancholy pleasure, two daisies springing from the grass over 
Elizabeth's grave. Sorrowfully he plucked and kissed them, 
and, placing them next his heart, departed. 

He never returned, until they bore him, at his dying request, 
to place him at her side. 

BRUSSELS. 

I lingered three days in Antwerp, as many hours in Malines, 
and fled on to Belgium's capital ; where I took rooms at the 
Belle Vue, and sat down to dinner, the next-door neighbor of 
a sovereign. In this beautiful city, I passed five calm delicious 
days, undisturbed by excitement, and little occupied with 
novelty ; for there is neither here. But there is beauty ; and 
that detained me. People say that Brussels is a little Paris. 
I have not seen Paris, and therefore I cannot judge of the 
comparison ; though the fair palaces, broad boulevards, umbra- 
geous parks, and French toilettes, which I saw here, reminded 
me of the Paris I have heard described. 



64 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

It was Sunday morning, the day after my arrival ; and as I 
had been to see the HacJiel in Racine's Phedre, the night be- 
fore, the sun was already shining brightly in my window when 
I awoke. Before rising, I lay some time in a sweet state of 
semi-somnolence and reverie, listening to the band, which was 
performing a morning serenade under the King's window — so 
near my own, that I had nearly attributed the honor to myself! — 
and to the chimes, which were performing an agreeable accom- 
paniment in the spire of St. Gudule, as they summoned the 
pious to prayers. I thought of all I had so lately seen ; of the 
realization of so many of my past dreams ; and I could not 
help wishing that some of them had remained dreams ; others, 
however, I admitted had surpassed all my previously formed 
ideas. I thought of Waterloo, and Byron's description of it ; 
and then, by a ludicrous association, I remembered distinctly 
having declaimed the poem, regularly every Friday afternoon, 
for at least two years, while at school; with the rare exceptions 
of an occasional Macbeth-murder, or Hamlet-melancholy soli- 
loquy. And this reminded me that on that same day, one year 
ago, I had partaken of my farewell dinner with my fellow-class- 
mates, and that the next day would be the anniversai-y, not 
only of my country's emancipation, but of my ovm — from the 
dull tyranny of inhuman humanities, and superhuman labyrinths 
in morals and mathematics. But it would be the anniversary 
of the second deepest separation my heart had known ; that 
which divided me for ever from those who made the years 
of collegiate labor light, and painted the image of the dear old 
Virginia College on my heart's purest page. Blessings be upon 
it, and attend those who will leave it to-morrow, as I left it a 
year ago ! for although an ocean divides us, I know that I have 
friends there who still think of me, as I daily remember them. 
But I pray you, my friend, dear reader, pardon this digression ! 
I am sure you will, if you are blessed with similar memories. 

I went this morning, when my toilette and breakfast had dis- 
persed my dreams, to witness mass in the Cathedral, or Church 
of St. Gudule, a fine old building, well restored on the outside 
and well preserved in the interior. I found it quite full when 
I arrived ; and a fair young priest, who looked like a picture 



Brussels. 65 

of Gabi. Sue's romance, was preaching in eloquent French 

when I entered. As I understood him but indifterentlj well, I 
soon turned my attention from the preacher to the pulpit in which 
he stood, and which struck me as being a very masterpiece of 
wooden carving, as it really is the chef d'oeuvre of the artist 
Verbruggen. It represents a globe, supported on the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil ; at the base of the tree Adam and 
Eve are being driven out of Pai'adise by an angel, who wields 
the sword of flame ; while Death, aS a sheeted skeleton, glides 
around with his dart from the other side. The tree is teeminor 

o 

with delicious-looking fruit, and perched on the branches are 
many birds and animals. At the side of Adam are the ostrich 
and the eagle ; while, in rather satirical vicinity to Eve, appear 
the ape, the peacock, and the parrot. Above the canopy stands 
the Virgin, bearing the infant Saviour in her arms, and assist- 
ing to thrust the extremity of the cross into the serpent's head. 
A more eloquent sermon than this pulpit could not be preached 
from it, though it is a sad one. It was presented to the church 
by Maria Theresa. The other beauties of the Cathedral are the 
carved wooden altar, and the splendid painted-glass windows. 
There are also a few interesting monuments to men who were 
sovereigns, and ruled once, before they became dust ; and to 
Count Merode, a martyr of the revolution of 1830, sculptured 
by Geefs, in the attitude and attire in which he died. 

As I left the church, I purchased an authorized version of the 
story of the miraculous wafers, contained in the chapel, called 
St. Sacrement des Miracles. This veracious legend says, as 
near as I can translate it, that about the end of the fourteenth 
century, on Good Friday, these wafers were stolen, at the insti- 
gation of a sacrilegious Jew, from the altar, and subjected to 
insults by himself and brethren, in their synagogue. In their 
blind fury and blasphemy, they proceeded so far as to stick 
their knives into the sanctified wafers ; when gouts of blood 
gushed forth from the Avounds, and by a second miracle the 
scoffers were struck senseless. A pretended spectator, a convert 
to Christianity, then denounced them ; and, being seized, they 
were put to death with fitting torments, their flesh being first 
justly torn off with red-hot pincers, and then, mercifully, they 
6 * 



(jQ Europe A :n Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

■were burnt at the stake. The wafers are still, as I have saul, 
preserved here; and annually, on the 15th of July, they are 
exhibited, and a solemn procession of the clergy commemorates 
this triumph of the faith. There can be no doubt of this mira- 
cle ; for it is known that there were many very wealthy Jews 
put to death about this period, and their money enriched the 
church for a long time : besides, the wafers still exhibit the 
stains of blood ! 

In the afternoon I visite'd the Church of Notre Dame, more 
to pay a pilgrimage to the tomb of the painter Brenghel, than 
for any other object. I found it a small plain tablet ; but it 
was, to me at least, far more imposing than the lofty monument 
of the Spinola family, by its side. Here, also, there is a 
curiously-carved pulpit, some bad old pictures, and some very 
"•ood modern frescoes. 

o 

The rest of the day I passed in a voiture, rolling up and 
down the principal streets, behind a pair of most wretched-look- 
ing horses, and a driver who could not speak English nor 
French — a fortunate circumstance, as he could not bore me with 
advice and explanations. I drove down the Rue Ducale, by the 
residences of the foreign ambassadors ; through the Place 
Royale, where in the centre a spirited horse in bronze seems 
always threatening to leap from his pedestal with his rider, 
Godfrey of Bouillon ; around the delightful park, filled with 
hills and vales, forest trees and flowers, statues and happy human 
faces ; and, finally, past the Place des Martyrs, where stands a 
large monument of Liberty, erected over the grave of three 
hundred "brave Beiges," who fell in the last Revolution. 

The other days of my sojourn were spent in wandering through 
the lower town, which abounds in fine quaint old buildings, once 
the residences of the Brabant noblesse, though now only occupied 
by the trades-people ; and in examining the magnificent Hotel de 
Ville, and the various galleries of paintings. The Hotel de Ville, 
in the market-place, is one of the most beautiful gothic buildings 
I have ever seen ; its plan is somewhat irregular, though possess- 
ing entire unity of effect, and so large that the copper statue of 
St. Michael on the top, seventeen feet high, seems, as it turns 
with the varying winds, no larger than an ordinary weathercock. 



Brussels. 67 

In the market-place, in front of it, are picturesque old houses ; and 
from that old gothic house, looking down into it, Alva, it is said, 
looked down on the execution of the Counts Egrnont and Horn. 

There are many other objects -worth remembering, and, were 
I attempting a lofty book of travels, instead of these simple remi- 
niscences, worth relating in Brussels. There is the house in the 
Rue Royale, where the Duchess of Richmond gave the grand ball 
on the eve of Waterloo, which Byron has rendered almost as 
memorable as the battle itself. Then there are the Galleries de Roi 
and de la Reine — streets covered with glass and lined with bril- 
liant shops, until they resemble the Crystal Palace ; and the 
beautiful little theatres ; and the Prison des Petits Carmes, 
celebrated as the spot where the Protestant confederates, in the 
time of Philip II., drew up their famous petition to the Vice 
Queen Margaret, called "The Request," one of the leading 
events of that Revolution which freed the Low Countries from 
the dominion of Spain. These, too, are only the most remark- 
able of many objects of interest. 

The pictures of Brussels, though more numerous, are not as 
fine as those in some of the other Belgian towns. Those in the 
King's palace, with the exception of a few modern ones, are the 
worst; and the small gallery of the D'Aremberg palace contains 
the finest, chiefly by Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Paul Potter. 
The Museum contains the celebrated Burgundian Library, filled 
with rare books and MSS. ; a collection of natural history; a 
room devoted to scientific and mechanical inventions ; and a large 
gallery of paintings. Here are several works attributed to 
Rubens, but much inferior to those of his at Antwerp ; some 
good pictures of the Dutch and Flemish Schools, and some poor 
ones of the Italian. This gallery is open on three days of the 
week to the public ; but a slight fee gained me admittance when- 
ever I wished. On the public days, they were filled with respect- 
able-looking, well-behaved people of all classes ; on the others, 
with young students, not examining, but studying. As I 
viewed these at their work, I forgot for the present all my 
interest in travel and adventure, and looked forward only to 
the time when, in Florence, the home of my future dreams, the 
critic should rise into the creator, the pen be thrown aside for 
the pencil, and I too be a student. 



V. 

THE MEUSE. 

I LEFT Brussels, one fine morning at daybreak ; and, passing 
through Nivelles and Charleroi, found myself at dinner-time in 
Namur, an old town, mentioned by Caesar as the capital of the 
Atnatici. It is now the capital of the province of Namur, 
situated at the embouchure of the Sambre into the Meuse, in 
the heart of the "cockpit" of Europe; and is celebrated for 
its cutlers, its citadel, its crawfish, and its numerous sieges, in 
one of which, the reader will recollect, "my uncle Toby" was 
eno-acred. 

The most distinct impressions that I have carried away with 
me from this place are that the Hotel de Hollande is a good 
one, and the vin ordinaire very ordinary indeed. In the town 
itself, there was little to be seen save the fortifications, a great 
many little soldiers with big mustaches, and a like number of 
very dirty little boys, who, probably from the military influences 
around them, were always "playing soldier," and teaching 
their infant minds how to shoot, by practising the manual with 
infinite broomsticks. In the river in front of the city were 
to be seen an occasional raft or small boat, tugged wearily up 
the stream by transparent horses ; and a long perspective of 
washerwomen, each with her petticoats tied around her body, 
standing over the knees in water, and rubbing away with appal- 
ling energy at endless piles of soiled garments. This, with a 
fair which was held in the principal square, comprises all I saw 
of Namur, in the day I spent there. The evening I passed in 
one of the booths at the fair, occupied by a company of Gyp- 
sies, Avho gave, for a few nights only, the refined entertainments 
of the stage to the citizens and gentry of the town. I had 
been attracted there by the sound of music, performed by a 
Gypsey band, in check shirts and straw hats ; and, as the price 
of a premier seat was announced to be but one franc, I satis- 
fied my curiosity by entering. It was a rudely fitted up box, 



The Me USE. 69* 

filled chiefly with the bourgeoisie of the place, though with a 
sprinkling of the paysans fi*om the country round, and one or 
two persons of a higher class. Among them all, however, a 
perfect equality and good feeling seemed to exist; whoever 
wished to enjoy the luxury of our American weed did so with- 
out interruption, so that when the curtain rose, the actors were 
half obscured by the dense cloud of suifocating smoke which 
hung around. The orchestra possessed the same independent 
feeling, and played most vehemently with their hats on their 
heads. The performance consisted of experiments in the 
noble art of legerdemain ; interspersed with simple phenomena 
in galvanism and electricity, in which Monsieur Goujon of the 
audience good-naturedly let himself be tortured for our amuse- 
ment ; the whole concluding with a panorama of something, 
and a series of magic-lantern illusions. All passed oif very 
well, except that whenever the performer had anything to say, 
his voice was sure to be lost in the roar of the base drum of a 
rival showman ; and whenever the gas was let down to exhibit 
the chemical lights, they went out entirely, and it took the 
first fiddle full fifteen minutes to light them again. 

The next day I went on board the little steamer at the pier, 
which was soon struggling with the current on her way to 
Dinant. The scenery above Namur is very beautiful. The 
river is hemmed in by magnificent cliffs of limestone, and large 
trees, and graceful hop-vines, interspersed with many a golden 
harvest-field and quiet village. Pretty villas and chateaus 
were also passed ; and as we approached Dinant, the ruined 
walls of ^<-La Terreur des Dinantois" frowned in gray grandeur 
from the green hill-side. Farther on, the Castle of Bouvignes 
looked down upon us — a sacred spot in history; for from the 
top of yonder tower three fair young women flung themselves, and 
were dashed to pieces, after they had seen their husbands fall, 
and when they were threatened with brutish violence by their 
French captors. Passing these, the fortified clifls above Dinant 
became visible ; and soon after I stepped ashore in a town 
whose history contains as much of romance as any in Belgium. 
It contains very little, however, beyond its associations, to 
interest the traveller; and so, when I wandered out in the 



70 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

purple evening, I gave myself entirely up to reverie. In times 
gone by, the Dinantians and the inhabitants of Bouvigne were 
rivals in the manufacture of copper-kettles, and many were the 
bloody affrays resulting, in the animosity thus occasioned ; and 
as I listened to the ring of hammer and anvil in the workshop 
near me, where the descendants of the bold fighting copper- 
smiths still carry on the occupation, I reflected on this casus 
belli, which, though ludicrous enough, was perhaps as consistent 
a one as that of half the wars ever fought in Christendom. 
The citizens of this town appear to have been especially fero- 
cious. Once their city was burnt, because they hung the am- 
bassadors from the camp of Louis the Good, who came to sum^ 
mon them to surrender ; and again, having politely replied to 
a similar request of the Due de Nevers, that should the Duke 
and the King of France ever fall into their hands, they would 
make a fricassee of their livers and hearts for breakfast, the 
Duke was uncivil enough to demolish their city entirely. 

But it was the Grotto of Hans sur Lesse that had lured me 
up the Mouse, so I took a voiture early one morning to visit it. 
The sun was just rising when we entered the Forest of Arden- 
nes, which, as over the troops at Waterloo, waved her green 
leaves, " dewy Avith nature's tear-drops," above our heads. 
The scenery presented a charming air of wildness and seclusion ; 
and even the wretched inns along the road appeared comfort- 
able and inviting, since here the Avorld of travelling cockneys 
was not visible. From the branches of the large old oaks along 
our path, the birds were singing their jubilant songs ; and seve- 
ral times, where the road wound along the banks of some cool 
rivulet, I caught sight of the scared eye and dusky forms of 
the antlered deer, or the bristling boar. We stopped to break- 
fast at a little village cabaret, where a beautiful dark-eyed little 
maiden served us with excellent trout, venison-steaks, and im- 
mense plates of strawberries buried in cream ; which, with 
fresh milk, honey richer than the Hymettian that the old Romans 
mingled with their Falernian wine, and the plenty of air and 
exercise, made it a feast of no common luxuriance. After 
doing the amplest justice to it all, and having our hands kissed 
by the little maiden in gratitude for our gratuity, we set out; 



TheMeuse. 71 

and wandering for some distance along the banks of the Lesse, 
we reached the Cavern of Tron de Han, the object of our 
excursion. 

The valley of the Lesse is here barricaded by a wall of rock 
stretching across it, but the river precipitates itself into the 
cave at the bottom, and forces a passage through it. As I 
wished to enter, I procured a guide and a boat, and rowed up 
into the cavern at the spot where the river issues from it. The 
first chamber of the many into which the grotto is divided was 
illumined by the reflection of the water, and had a most beau- 
tiful eifect. When we entered the others, the guide lighted his 
torches ; and then commenced the magic beauty of the scene. 
It reminded me of Coleridge's sacred river Alp, which ran — 

" Through caverns measureless to man, 
Down to a sunless sea." 

The stalactites gleaming in the light like pillars, the fretted 
roofs of diamond and sapphire and ruby, and the red reflections 
of the torches shimmering down deep in the inky waters, were 
gorgeous representations of the " stately pleasure dome," in 
Xanidu ; and rendered me half doubtful whether I was not the 
sport of a delightful dream. The illusion was destroyed, how- 
ever, when I left the boat, and scrambled after the guide over 
the mud and stones deeper within the cave. After being within 
for nearly two hours, I emerged, like the river, very muddy 
and dirty ; and having cleaned and refreshed myself at the 
cabaret near the entrance, drove slowly back to Dinant, by a 
shorter but less picturesque route. 

In the afternoon I embarked again for Namur, where I took 
another boat for Liege. The banks of the Mouse below Namm 
are celebrated as being the most beautiful in Northern Europe, 
and contain every variety of landscape. Cliffs like the turrets 
of old castles, woodland and meadow, hop-fields, vineyards, old 
ruins, and pleasing villages, were passed every minute. I read 
Wordsworth here, amid the scenes which had inspired his muse ; 
and was charmed at the same time both with his eloquent verse, 
and what an artistic friend of mine calls the " crude poetry" 
which dwelt in the sky and the mountains around me ; which 



72 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

murmured in melody in the stream and in the wind, and breathed 
its perfumed soul from the fields and flowers of either bank. 

At Huy, a strongly fortified town, with splendid battlements 
bristling with cannon, we stopped to take on board a party of 
soldiers, who were drafted into some other station. Their fare- 
wells to their comrades and sweethearts were very touching. 
They all shook hands also with their commandant, who, though 
he appeared half ashamed of the weakness, suffered a tear to 
trickle down his gray moustache, as he listened to their simple 
adieus. 

I was much amused with an incident that occurred here. A 
young Englishman, with an inquisitive look and weak brandy- 
and-water-colored whiskers, was particularly anxious to ascer- 
tain the name of the town, which is pronounced as if spelled 
ive. Approaching a fierce-looking individual with a superfluity 
of hair, he inquired, in bad French : — 

" Kel nong dissy vil ? Jay voo pree." 

"Huy!" said the fierce-looking individual, pronouncing it 
we. 

<' No ! — kel nong de vil — the city — issy — there," said brandy- 
and-water-whiskers, endeavoring to make himself better under- 
stood ; for he imagined the gentleman had replied to his ques- 
tion with the French afiirmative, oui. 

" Huy !" replied the other gentleman, with a half-contempt- 
uous emphasis. 

"Oh, Heavens!" said the Englishman, turning to where I 
stood, nearly convulsed ; " why don't these passengers speak 
English or French? They do not understand a word we say." 

"I do fushtand ! I say Huy! Huy! Huy! It is you 
comprez ne pas, you no fushtay — Huy;" and the irritable 
gentleman went ofi'into sundry mutterings in divers languages; 
and as he spoke them all badly, I have been to this day in 
doubt as to his nativity. As to the Englishman, he looked the 
personification of surprise and indignation ; but he restrained 
his wrath, which was wise, and buried his vexation in his note- 
book, where doubtless he made a memorandum of the incivili- 
ties of all foreigners, and those to be met with on the Mouse 
especially. 



The Me USE. 73 

Passing Huj, the river became less picturesque, and the 
banks on either side less precipitous, and were covered with 
the indications of manufactures and busy life. Dusky factories, 
with their smoking chimneys, arose on every side; while in 
front of each, the river swarmed with naked men and boys, 
dashing water at each other, and swimming out to the very boat. 
As we proceeded, the ring of hammers and forges becair.c more 
frequent; and soon the begrimed sides of the ancient Epis- 
copal Palace of Liege, now an enormous factory, reured its 
forest of tall towers before us — a lasting monument to the 
enterprise of Mr. John Cockerill, an Englishman, v/ho turned 
the quiet old city into a Belgic Birmingham or Pittsburg. We 
now entered the suburbs of the city of Liege, which lies on 
both sides of the river ; and having taken a hasty notice of the 
fine old buildings, and an immense floating swimming-school, 
we landed and drove to the Hotel de I'Europe, which I take 
pleasure in recommending to all future voyagers. 

I walked out into the city immediately on arriving, endeavor- 
ing to locate my reminiscences of Quentin Durward, the scene 
of whose adventures is partly laid here ; and although my 
research was crowned with but little success, it added greatly 
to the interest and pleasure I took in my promenade. Reflect- 
ing on this when I returned to my hotel, and remembering how 
often such associations had thrown a veil of beauty over other- 
wise uninteresting places, I took delight in the thought that 
even by these hasty sketches of mine, I might add to the plea- 
sure with which, perchance, some friend might in a future day 
regard these same scenes ; and whether they may or not, I 
have enjoyed the anticipation. 

I wandered through the old streets near the Mouse until late 
at night, listening to the sounds of labor, and to the cheerful 
songs of the workmen, as they wrought the stubborn iron into 
firearms and machinery ; industrious noises, not unpleasing to 
hear, and which resounded in my ears even after I had sought 
my bed. 

The lions of Liege were soon seen. The Cathedral, with its 
splendid cedar-wood pulpit, carved by Geefs ; the Church of 
St. Jacques, and its wide windows, " flamboyant with a thou- 
7 



74 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

sand gorgeous colors;" the house of Gretry, the composer; 
and the fine view from Wakois's celebrated Jardin des Plantes, 
near the city. But I could not enjoy them on account of the 
burning heat of the sun, which seemed to scorch the very 
atmosphere that conducted its rays to the earth ; and if the 
reader feels any disappointment at the brevity and carelessness 
apparent in this description of them, I can only plead the 
excuse that a day similar to it, which has dried up every faculty 
of thought and expression within my brain, at present burns 
around me. 

aix-la-chapelle. 

Never, in all my travelling experience, have I felt the influ- 
ence of- a more burning sun than that which dropped its molten 
flames upon the old town of Charlemagne, as I panted on after 
the little gamin Avho carried my luggage from the Douane to 
the Hotel Nuellens. The atmosphere was actually rendered 
visible by the heat, and glistened tremulously, like the air im- 
mediately above a red-hot stove. This accounted for the dreamy 
solitude of the broad beautiful streets, lined with shade trees 
almost the whole way to the hotel, where I met with the first 
visible specimens of humanity, save cabmen and porters, in the 
town. I took apartments ; and having cast one look out of my 
Avindow to where the huge dome of the Munster and the quaint 
towers of the Rathhaus appeared above the houses, and one 
down into the square below me, where one solitary carriage was 
standing in the sun, with a pair of boots extended out of the 
window, giving satisfactory assurance of the driver's slumbers ; 
I stretched myself upon a canape beneath the window, where 
two large blue-bottles soon sang me to sleep — unpleasant sleep, 
in which the mirage mocked me, and unsubstantial rivulets fled 
before me for ever. 

Awakening at five o'clock, I went down to dinner ; apropos 
of which, I do not know that I have as yet described 
a specimen of these daily continental repasts ; and as this parr 
ticular one, with its iced champagne and cool salads, still occu- 
pies a place amid my most delightful reminiscences, I feel it my 
duty to give it, en passant, a brief and grateful notice. I 
must confess, however, on the threshold of the subject, that the 



Aix-la-Chapelle. 75 

technical names of many a delightful dish have long faded froa 
my memory, as their flavors have from my palate ; so the Epi- 
curean reader will have to assist me by his own imagination. 
On the Continent there is always a prandial table d'hote, which, 
for many reasons, is frequented by everybody alike ; even the 
reserved Briton, Avho at home prefers always a private room 
and a lonely dinner, here forgets his pride of privacy, and sits 
down with the rest. At a Avatering-place, too, as at Aix, the 
table d'hote, like misery, brings together strange companions 
Royal princes, generals, nobles, and gamblers ; Hebrews, Rus- 
sians, English, and French mingle with the indigenous Ger- 
mans, until one feels almost confused in his own nationality, 
and replies to Smith over the way in Italian ; and when Brown, 
who came over in the Baltic with you, asks you in French to 
take wine, you involuntarily respond in gibberish, like the 
Polish officer next to you. Frequently, also, you see a man 
of whose exact birthplace you may be in some doubt — generally 
tall, dashing, and somewhat reserved ; who wears a moustache, 
and addresses the waiters in almost pure Parisian, while he is 
also overheard to speak remarkably good English. If, in spite 
of all these characteristics, you are still in doubt of him, see 
if he evinces a decided preference for champagne, and if his 
companion — wife or sister — is very beautiful, and then you may 
decide positively on his being an American. Do not think 
that I wish to insinuate that this portrait is so general that 
Dom Boquet himself may be considered an exponent of it — 
unfortunately he is far from it ; his French was always tremu- 
lous, and, in spite of his republican education, he was almost 
terrified, when, on the occasion alluded to, he found himself 
seated at the table between a German prince with a very 
remarkable nose, and a Belgian general with an infinity of 
hair — resembling somewhat in his situation the arms of England 
between a lion and a unicorn. 

The conduct of dinner on the Continent varies a great deal 
from that at our American tables d'hote. Instead of a bill of 
fare, from which after the soup you are at liberty to select 
your own dishes, one is here compelled to undergo the ordeal 
of at least a dozen different courses, each consisting of but one 



76 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

or two dishes. This, while it is inconvenient in taking up too 
much time in dining, has also several other disadvantages, the 
greatest of which is the almost impossibility of refusing judi- 
ciously; for if one would indulge in everything offered him, he 
would soon get in the condition of the man who, in a Western 
hotel, attempted to eat through the bill of fare ; and would be 
exposed to the mortification of seeing cates he liked exceed- 
ingly pass him after he had sated himself on unsavory ones. 
Thus one must learn when to refuse and when to accept ; and 
a plan to effect this by the uninitiated I would beg leave to 
suggest, as having been of service to myself. It is to watch 
some friand of apparent good taste (N. B. Gouty gentlemen 
generally safest), and imitate him as much as possible. Even 
this plan, however, has its drawbacks, as I once found at the 
Bellevue, at Deutz. Having for some days thus imitated the 
appetite of an old English gentleman who sat near me, and 
having been much pleased with his selections, one day, pur- 
suing the same course, and he being, unknown to me, quite ill, 
refused everything, I, Avho expected something very rare, did 
not discover my mistake until the dessert, when I commenced 
dining on ice-cream and sweet pates. 

But I fear my symposion is partaking too much of the cha- 
racter of its prototype ; and so, reader, if it please you, as it 
did me, to leave the table for a promenade in the cool evening 
around Aix-la-Chapelle, we shall now do so. Aliens ! 

It was with emotions of what De Quincey would call " deep 
pathos," that I wandered through the streets of Aix, when the 
sun had set beyond the distant hills, and the residents — water- 
drinkers and citizens — had come out, with the stars in the 
heavens, to enjoy the fresh life of the young night. It seems 
singular to me that, amid all the novelty and excitements of 
society and art that I have undergone during my tour, a few 
calm still evenings, spent in solitary musings amid scenes of 
historic grandeur, have left far more lasting and impressive 
memories in my mind ; and now, in writing of the past, I turn 
to such moments with a purer joy than to any other experiences 
whatever. Thus, in my first ramble through the city of the 



Aix-la-Chapelle. 77 

great emperor of Germany, I received deeper impressions than 
were left by every other hour of my stay. I strolled around 
by the Cathedral, and the Hotel de Ville, with its Roman tower 
and its associations — the shroud and the cradle of Charlemagne. 
A pretty little genre picture was presented to me in the square — 
a blind beggar drinking from a fountain surmounted by a statue 
of the Emperor. The streets were full of people, and the 
salons of caf^s and bath-houses glittered with gas-lights and 
echoed the sounds of pleasure. At the Redoubte, music mingled 
with the clink of glasses and dice, and the feet of a hundred 
dancers kept time with all ; yet all these things, so inharmo- 
nious with the associations of the place, did not at all jar any 
chord of feeling in my heart. So vivid were the memories in 
my mind, that the Past became to me the real, and the Present 
but as an excited dream. The grandeur of the old Carlovin- 
gian era was more potent to me than the noisy bustle of fashion 
and pleasure ; and where there were so many things recalling 
the departed greatness of the place, I could not feel either 
sympathy or disgust at what was going on around me. I strolled 
outside the gates, and reached before dark the old ruin of 
Louisberg, on a neighboring hill, from which place I had an 
excellent view of the city and its environs. An amphitheatre 
of green hills stretched around me for many a mile, the hither 
landscape dotted with many a place of interest. One faint 
tower in the distance was Frank enburg, a hunting chateau of 
Charlemagne. Below, the Boulevard swarmed with vehicles, 
and beyond, in dusky grandeur, loomed the domes of the city ; 
and my eyes wandered instinctively to this fine view of the 
Domkirche and the Rathhause, made at present far more impos- 
ing than ever by the crepuscular influence of the twilight and 
the crowding memories that had accompanied me. Long I gazed 
on these two objects, eloquently called by Victor Hugo, " the 
august cradle of Charlemagne, and the sepulchre of his eter- 
nal greatness ;" and not until the moon shed her spiritualizing 
influence over all, from the highest heavens, did I leave my 

position by the old castle, to descend to dreams of 

1 * 



78 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 



CHARLEMAGNE. 

I Stood on the tomb of Carolus Magnus, as the inscription 
on the marble slab beneath my feet testified ; the massive can- 
delabrum of Barbarossa above my head, and the grand old walls 
of the Chapelle, mutely eloquent of the past, looking down 
upon me. Never before did I feel so mortifying a sense of 
my own littleness as then. There was the end of life — the 
end to which all are journeying. The haughty, successful, 
deified Emperor, and the tattered beggar-woman in the corner, 
doubtless pleading for his intercession, in a few years will be 
contemporaries, and in the sight of Heaven, perchance, equals. 
All are peers in the republic of the grave. 

In Aix-la-Chapelle was Carolus born, and here he died ; the 
Cathedral standing on the site of the chapel which he designed 
himself as his burial-place. The original edifice, which gave 
the soubriquet to the city itself, was built in the form of the 
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and at its consecration there were 
present, besides the Pope, three hundred and sixty-five arch- 
bishops and bishops, two of whom were the ghosts, according 
to the legend, of two pious prelates, who revisited earth that 
the sacred number might be complete. The present Cathedral 
was rebuilt from the ruins of the first structure, and is one of 
the oldest in Germany. Under the centre of the dome, in the 
most antique portion, Charlemagne was buried ; not reclining 
in a coSin, nor bound in the usual cerements of the grave, but 
seated on his throne as if alive, clothed in his imperial robes, 
with his sceptre in his hands, and on his knees a copy of the 
Scriptures. His fleshless brow was still pressed by the crown, 
and plebeian worms ate his heart out, without disturbing the 
purple mantle on his shoulders. All these regal relics, with 
his sword Joyeuse and his pilgrim's pouch, have been removed 
to Vienna. Frederick Barbarossa first disturbed the tomb ; 
and it is most likely that his valuable presents to the Church, 
afterwards, were made to appease his own conscience, as well 
as to satisfy the priests for the sacrilege. 

After standing reverently for some time, lost in the recollec- 



Charlemagne. 79 

tions that tlie place aroused, I followed the sacristan into the 
gallery, where he exposed to my sight the marble throne on 
which the great Emperor was seated in the tomb. It was but 
a simple chair of stone, deprived of the plates of gold which 
adorned it in former times, during the coronations of the thirty- 
six German Emperors who have sat upon it. Yet so impressive 
are the emotions it excites, that it is said Napoleon himself 
contemplated it uncovered. The priest who accompanied me 
invited me to sit upon it ; but I could not invade the sanctity 
of its associations. Near it stands an antique sarcophagus, 
ornamented with a fine bas-relief of the Rape of Proserpine ; 
and this shell, that once may have contained the ashes of 
a Roman Emperor, became the footstool of their successor in 
his grave. Everything in this gallery is suggestive of the 
grand past. The arches are adorned with pillars of porphyry 
and granite, brought by Charlemagne from the Exarch's Palace 
at Ravenna, and from the far Orient ; and beneath an old por- 
trait of the Emperor, part of the original mosaic pavement is 
preserved. 

The choir is a more modern addition, and is of lofty aerial 
appearance. It contains a splendid, richly ornamented silver- 
gilt pulpit — the gift of the Emperor Otho III. ; and with the 
image of the Holy Virgin, over the altar, a more sacred relic 
is associated, for on the insipid brow of the statue burns a crown 
of pure gold, a present from the unfortunate Mary, Queen of 
Scots. 

One dollar procured me admission into the sacristy, where 
the principal treasures and relics of the church are preserved. 
We passed into a small mean room on the right of the choir, 
surrounded by cases like book-shelves, which when thrown open 
disclosed prodigality of art and wealth that dazzled me as I 
gazed. There were gems and precious woods from the East — 
gifts of the half-mythical magnificent Haroun al Raschid ; 
and relics authenticated with the seal of Constantine the Great ; 
others of saints and martyrs, intrinsically worthless, set in 
shrines of jewels and gold of incalculable price and wonderful 
brilliancy ; and, what interested me more than all, some un- 
doubted relics of Charlemagne, which my companion held 



80 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

between his thumb and forefinger for my edification. Among 
these, a bone long adduced as an evidence of the Emperor's 
gigantic size, under the supposition that it was an arm-bone, 
until late anatomists proved it to be a tibia. 

In gazing at these things I became involuntarily a participant 
in the superstition that has sanctified them ; for all worship is 
sacred, and these bits of wood and linen, and bottles of blood, 
and splinters of bones, from the fact that for centuries they 
have received the adoration of pilgrims, could only alfect me 
solemnly, while I pitied the credulity of the worshippers, and 
felt shocked at the pretended associations of the objects them- 
selves, which, even if their authenticity were undoubted, at 
best only suggest the materiality of Christianity, which God, 
who has hidden the tombs of the Prophets and Apostles, evi- 
dently has designed to be kept in the background. But this is 
a subject on which it is hardly proper to dilate in a book of 
this character, and being, apart from their authenticity, which 
it were useless to assert or deny, merely a matter of feeling, a 
subject useless to discuss. 

I began this chapter with the name of Charlemagne, not 
that it was to contain more of him than the past or the next 
division ; but, as I wished to attempt a description of those 
things with which he was most intimately associated, I desired 
to have my readers afi'ected on the threshold of the narrative 
with the idea of him that filled my mind when I wandered amid 
the scenes that his life and death were both so intimately asso- 
ciated with ; hoping that thus my feeble descriptions might be 
strengthened by their imagination and assisted by their memory. 



VI. 

THE GRAND RELIQUES. 

I WAS awakened on Sunday morning by the sound of music 
in the street, beneath my window ; and, on rising and looking 
out, I found the city already awake and stirring. A strange 
medley of priests, soldiers, and beggars were marching by in 
procession, and gayly-dressed people were looking on from every 
window and doorway. Flags were flaunting from the MUnster 
dome, and from the towers of the town-hall ; and I rubbed my 
eyes, in doubt as to my being perfectly awake. Merrily rang 
out the bells, and bright the summer sun shone down into the 
square, glittering on the bayonets of the soldiers, and giving a 
richer splendor to the gorgeous apparel of the priests ; and it 
was only when I reflected that on this day I was to witness the 
exhibition of the Grand Reliques of Aix — a sight only per- 
mitted to pilgrims once in seven years — that I was persuaded 
that I still lived in the nineteenth century, and that during 
the night the world had not gone back a thousand years, and 
the old Carlovingian reign returned. Dressing myself, I took 
a hasty breakfast, and sallied forth. Although oppressively 
warm, the streets were already filled with people, and especially 
in the neighborhood of the Cathedral, Avhere every window 
teemed with human life, and even the roofs were as crowded as 
the balconies. The Church itself was gayly decorated with 
flags, which flapped with petty satire against the gray old stones. 
Bands of music were performing, and the bells rang out a wild 
welcome to the day. I took a station in the crowd immediately 
in front of the Church, and keeping as far in the shade as pos- 
sible, I endeavored to find interest in observing the pilgrims 
around me, until the exhibition should commence. They were 
a motley set ; tourists from all parts of Europe ; peasants from 
the banks of the Mouse and the vineyards of the Rhine ; and 
others, whose costumes indicated a remoter nationality; artists, 
"who beneath their slouched hats were evidently studying the 



82 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

groups around them ; English of all classes — from the rubicund 
man-of-family, with five fat daughters, down to the weeest kind 
of petty darks from lawyers' offices and linen-draper shops in 
the city. Effeminate heroes, on leave from the Horse Guards, 
stroking their moustaches and affirming of the spectacle, that 
it was " odd, very odd !" Soldiers and priests were everywhere; 
and occasionally an arrogant dragoon, according to the approved 
custom in all such cases, would gallop off nowhere about no- 
thing, frightening from their devotions the old women and nut- 
brown maidens, who, with one eye on their beads and the other 
on the crowd, were kneeling in the square. 

As the sun's rays drove the shadow closer to the wall, the 
heat became intense, and the odors exhaled from the miscella- 
neous lungs around were far from being agreeable ; but, acci- 
dent having favored me Avith so exclusive a show as one only 
exhibited ten times in the longest lifetime, I stood it out 
bravely. Soon the organ pealed forth in grand tones within 
the Cathedral ; the military and other bands outside commenced 
playing also ; the soldiers were drawn up in regular files ; some 
priests appeared on the apsis of the Cathedral roof; and, as 
the people fell again upon their knees, the ceremony com- 
menced. 

Eirst there flaunted from the roof a long robe, Avhich, after 
an interval employed in praying by the pious, gave place to 
another piece of drapery with similar musical and devotional 
accompaniments ; and so on da capo, until four pieces of cloth, 
more or less soiled, had been shown, Eceling considerably 
disappointed with the objects shown, intrinsically so much less 
interesting than the smaller reliques, I purchased a pamphlet 
at a stall near by, from which I translate this description of 
the articles — 

" 1. The white robe of the Holy Virgin, five and a half feet 
long, which she wore during the birth of our Lord. 

<■<■ 2. The swaddling-clothes in which our Saviour Jesus Christ 
was swathed; of which St. Luke, the Evangelist, speaks in 
chapter ii. 12 : ' You will find the babe Avrapped in swaddling- 
clothes, lying in a manger.' They are of a brown yellow color, 



The Ring of i^astrada. 83 

and of a kind of felt stuff, although woven. It is seen that a 
piece has fallen off, which is preserved in a black veil. 

"3. The linen in which the body of St. John the Baptist, 
when decapitated, was enveloped ; vide the Evangelists St. 
Matthew xiv. 12, St. Mark vi. 20. The said linen is of a 
thread exceedingly fine, in which may be seen still the stains 
of blood. It is folded and bound around with a cord of white 
silk. 

" 4. The linen by which our Saviour was covered, hanging on 
the holy cross ; in which the marks of his precious blood are 
visible. The threads of this cloth are very coarse, and it is 
folded many times and tied with a little cord." 

This was the exhibition that I stood several hours. tinder a 
hot sun to see ! and I could not help wondering at the morbid 
curiosity or superstition that still brings hundreds of pilgrims 
every seventh year to Aix. In former time they reckoned the 
visiters by thousands, and frequently the number equalled 
150,000 ; and in 1846, the exhibition preceding the present 
one, the number exceeded 180,000 ! 

As I followed the crowd back to the place in which the hotel 
was situated, I overheard a criticism on the affair, which fell 
from the lips of one of the afore-mentioned Horse-Guard 
heroes, which I quote because it met with my heartiest con- 
currence : — 

"A devilish boaw !" 

THE RING OF FASTRADA. 

The morning before I left Aix, I drove out, over pleasant 
fields and beneath umbrous archways of green trees, to the 
Castle of Frankenburg, the ancient hunting-seat of Charle- 
magne. The road was beautiful, and the air full of violet 
odors, of that soft elasticity encouraging thought not less than 
reverie ; for both of which moods the Prussian landscape and 
the sacred associations of the city afforded ample food. I have 
before me the sketch I made of the antique chateau, though it 
is not necessary, to recall the massive ivy-mantled old tower, 
with the modern residence attached ; the tall green trees, and 



84 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

the silent moat, over which in these peaceful days the draw- 
bridge rests undisturbed. Leaving the carriage, I walked 
through the arched portal into a court, where the domestic 
accompaniments of barnyards were alone visible. A large dog 
stood like a threatening sentinel at the gate, until a friendly 
servant approached ; under whose conduct I paced through the 
castle garden, and ascended the gray old tower, from which 
we had a glorious view of the country around. In coming down, 
he pointed out to me the window from which, according to the 
legend, the ring of Fastrada was thrown, and gave me a 
vilely-printed French pamphlet, containing somewhat of the 
history of the Castle ; from which, having selected a quiet spot 
under a cypress near the moat, I translated into my sketch- 
book the following brief chronicle : — 

* * * * " The bells that had rung out the knell of 
Fastrada had long been hushed, and their brazen throats no 
longer complained in sadness ; yet the heart of Charlemagne 
knew not consolation, and to his ears every wandering air 
became a dirge. He refused all nourishment, and, neglecting 
the affairs of his empire, abandoned himself wholly to grief. 
He had caused the corpse of the dead Queen to be laid in a 
crystal coffin ; and by day and night he never ceased the con- 
templation of her features, nor his lamentations for her death. 
His court was thrown into dismay at his despair, but he refused 
all the petitions of his subjects and counsellors. He allowed 
no one to come near him, save one page, who had been a favor- 
ite of the lady, and he did not dare to attempt consolation ; he 
would bring food, but he would take it away again untouched, 
■when he returned. This young page was questioned by the 
aged Turpin, the wisest of all the King's counsellors ; and was 
commanded to examine, if possible, and see if there was not 
some concealed charm oh the person of the Queen, that exer- 
cised thus an unholy influence over the Emperor's mind. The 
page watched as directed, when he visited his sovereign's 
chamber that day, and went and told Turpin, " There is a ring 
on the third finger of the Queen's hand — a serpent with a ruby 
crest, holding its tail in its mouth, and the ruby burns as if it 
were of flame." Then Turpin gave the boy wine, that he was 



KoLN. 85 

to press the Emperor to drink ; and when he would sleep, he 
was to open the coffin, and take the ring from her hand. The 
page obeyed, and the same night took the ring ; and Turpin 
threw it into the moat. Thereupon a great storm arose ; and, 
when the Emperor awoke, he found the flesh had withered from 
the lady's face, and the worms had commenced their horrid 
rof ast ; so he permitted them to bear her to the tomb. Thus 
was his mind released from the spell." * * * 

I smiled when I had finished the little story ; and, returning 
the book with a number of silver groschen, I bade adieu to my 
conductor ; and two hours later was dreaming of Fastrada and 
her ring, as I flew along in the cars on my way to 

KOLN. 

It was with sensations that must ever aff"ect even the least 
imaginative travellers, that I entered the old city of Cologne. 
I was now to see the Rhine, for the first time. The Rhine ! 
hitherto a magic name, calling up the ghosts of past magnifi- 
cence, of feudal grandeur, of wierd legend, of chivalrous love ! 
and I could not help trembling with the force of the emotions 
aroused within me. So I passed through the ancient Thurmches 
Thor, down a quaint old street, and even by the grand " incom- 
plete Iliad" of a Cathedral, with scarcely a glance at any of 
them. I had taken a friend's advice with reference to a hotel, 
and ordered the driver to carry me to the "Bellevue," in Deutz, 
across the river ; and therefore in a few moments I was rolling 
over the bridge of boats that connects the two cities, with the 
river stretching out to the seven mountains on the right, and 
losing itself in the meadows below the town on the left hand. 

Both my observations and my reveries were brought to an 
untimely end by a demand for the toll ; and before I had time 
to resume either, I was being interrogated in regard to my 
dinner by my polite host at the hotel. As the table d'hote was 
just ready, and the rapid ride from Aix had stimulated my 
appetite, I consented without much reluctance to defer until 
the morrow all active sentiment ; and soon, therefore, was tak- 



86 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

ing the first of the agreeable prandial lessons from the venera- 
ble Briton, I have alluded to in a previous chapter. 

Afterwards, I followed the greater part of the guests into 
the garden, between the hotel and the river, where one of the 
best bands in Europe was performing a variety of beautiful 
airs. The garden itself was not much superior to, nor unlike, 
those exotic retreats, devoted to lager beer, which are being 
established in our American cities ; consisting chiefly of a 
grove of pine tables, planted under scanty bowers of thirsty 
vines, and breathing odors more strongly impregnated with 
tobacco than with roses ; but the music, and the stars, and the 
hush of waters ; and beyond, the town, with its innumerable 
steeples rising into the quiet night, made it a scene of more 
than ordinary pleasure. Nor were the groups of tourists, that 
occupied its tables, and promenaded its walks, unworthy of 
attention, gathered as they were from a dozen different coun- 
tries, and speaking as many diverse languages. Whether it 
was a feeling of sympathy with the obvious enjoyment of all 
around me, or the self-complacency of one who has dined well, 
or the benevolence that is born of a cigar under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, or all of these and the influence of the night and 
the scene together, I do not know ; but I felt much less alone 
in the crowd than usual on similar occasions of isolation. The 
music stopped, and the guests gradually left, until I was quite 
alone ; when a waiter, who thought I must be asleep, touched 
my shoulder and aroused me from my reverie ; when I climbed 
to my room in the fourth story, where I listened to the wash of 
the Rhine against the bridge of boats, until it hushed me to 
sleep. 

The week I passed at Cologne afforded but scanty time to 
view even a tithe of the many objects of interest it contains. 
Its historical associations, dating back to the Roman Agrippa, 
are of sufficient variety to make it worthy of an especial pil- 
grimage. Its geographical position, between the mercantile 
plains of Holland and tlie legendary hills of the Upper Rhine, 
well typifies its character — renowned in war, in commerce, in 
arts, and in literature — the scene of both real and traditional 
romance. 



KoLN. 87 

The earliest place I visited was, of course, the DomkircJie, 
the vast half-articulated idea of gothic architecture, which 
stands a type at once of man's glory and insignificance. I 
stood with dumb awe before it. No ruin that I had ever wit- 
nessed was half so grand or so eloquent. Amid the sculpture 
of its arches, swallows had built their nests ; vines and briers, 
feeding on its decay, flaunted out of crevices in the wall, and 
draped with verdure its gray buttresses, making a sad music, 
which seemed half of triumph, as the wind rustled them. Jut- 
ting out above the vast towers, a large crane seemed weakly 
prophesying some indefinite fulfilment of the grand design. 
Masons and sculptors were at work around ; but their utmost 
labor seemed vain to arrest even the decay that has been going 
on for centuries, hopeless to ever finish the structure. On 
entering, I felt in a degree disappointed. The interior, fine as 
it is, being more complete, scarcely sustains the promise of the 
unfinished exterior ; though the view of its vast pillars and 
arches is very imposing. Many of the details, though much 
mutilated, are very fine ; and I was particularly struck with 
the painted windows, through which the light fell gorgeously 
upon the tesselated pavement. Some of these are quite 
modern ; others are of the time of Maximilian, and flame with 
all the extravagance of the German Renaissance. One of 
them Avas very curious, representing heraldicly the genealogy of 
the Virgin. Adam, in an imperial costume, appears lying on 
his back ; and from him springs a large tree, amid whose 
branches are seen the royal ancestry of Mary — David with his 
harp ; Solomon in stately pensiveness ; and, at the top, the 
unfolding calyx of a flower discloses the Virgin and the infant 
Saviour. 

The choir is the most imposing part of the Dom, luminous 
with painted windows of the fourteenth century, and intricate 
with arches, pillars, chapels, and statues of Apostles, in colored 
and golden robes. It contains, also, fine tapestries after 
designs by Rubens, and frescoes whose origin is unknown ; 
effigies of knights and bishops ; and, among others, that of 
old Conrad of Hochsteden, the august founder of the Church. 

Behind the high altar is a small chapel, containing the most 



88 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

venerable structure in the Cathedral — the famous shrine of the 
" Three Kings of Cologne," the Wise Men — ah oriente vene- 
runt — heralded by the Star of Bethlehem to the manger where 
the Saviour lay. The shrine is of silver gilt, radiant with pre- 
cious stones ; and, through an opening in it, the three skulls, 
inscribed with the Kings' names — Gaspar, Melchior, Bal- 
thazar — written in rubies, are seen, crowned with golden 
crowns, in ghastly mockery of death. A bas-relief represents 
the adoration of the Magi, and beneath we read : — 

" Corpora sanctorum recubant hie terna magorum, 
Ex his sublatum nihil est alibire locatum." 

Thus asserting an entire possession of these poetic remains, 
against all rival reliquaries. 

As I turned to depart, the guide arrested my footsteps, and 
gave me another souvenir of the church — I had been standing 
on the spot where the heart of Mary de Medicis was buried. 

The place next in interest, whether romantic or religious, as 
one may feel it, is the Church of Sta. Ursula, and of the 
Eleven Thousand Virgins. I looked with more than mere 
curiosity upon the shrine of the Three Kings ; there was so 
much poetry in the tradition, sounding like a page from the 
Thousand and One Nights, and illustrated as it is with Oriental 
splendor. I rather encouraged, therefore, a feeling of rever- 
ence as I looked on the crowned skulls ; but I could not help 
wondering how the most orthodox Romanist could swallow the 
enormous story of the British Princess and her immaculate 
companions. 

The Church itself has externally nothing remarkable about 
it ; but within, it presents certainly the most singular sight in 
Christendom. The whole structure seems builded of human 
bones. The double wall of the choir is packed with them ; 
whole skeletons are enclosed in cases, and skulls grin down 
upon one from every possible position. In addition to all these, 
there are many relics preserved in more sacred estimation. A 
few specimens of these I have transcribed literally from » 
printed catalogue, which I bought in the Church. 



KoLN. 89 

" There are in the Goklen Chamber : — 

" 1st, 120 busts, each of which contains, enclosed in its head, 
the skull of a martyr in a small velvet case, embroidered with 
gold, and the name of the martyr on it ; 33 of them are over- 
laid with silver, some adorned with precious stones and gems, 
and the head of St. Ursula is surrounded by a crown of great 
value. Amongst the great many heads, enclosed in cases of 
silver, may be mentioned here : 

" 2. The head of St. Etherius, bridegroom of St. Ursula, 
with the teeth well preserved." 

Here follows a list of a great number of bishops, dukes, and 
priests, and then : — 

<'48. 612 heads adorned with golden embroidery, in gilded 
glass chests. 

" 54. The arrow which pierced St. Ursula. 

" 60. A water-cruet, used at the wedding-meal at Cana, 
brought to Cologne by St. Bruno. An eye-witness, who has 
been in Cana, assures us that there are only five of these water- 
pots, and that the sixth he has seen in our golden chamber, is 
perfectly like the five other pots. 

"4. In gilt glass shrines: 1028 skulls, embroidered with 
gold," &c. 

There are innumerable others of these ghastly relics, which 
pious pilgrims come hither every year to worship — an idolatry 
far more horrible and disgusting than any of the old mytho- 
logies. 

The legend upon which this stupendous superstition ori- 
ginated is given in the little book I have already quoted, as 
follows : — 

" St. Ursula was born in Great Britain about the year 220, 
of Christian parents, King Dionetus Maurus and his wife 
Daria. Being of remarkable beauty, the neighboring King 
Agrippinus asked for her in marriage for his son Conanus. The 
betrothal was celebrated contrary to her w^ill ; for St. Ursula 
had already vowed everlasting virginity, and it was much more 
against her conscience to be united with the still pagan Cona- 
nus ; wherefore she bethought herself of a means to elude the 
intended marriage. They agreed to delay. Trusting in God, 
8* 



90 EuROPEiN Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

assisted by two kings, and attracted by rising Christianity, she 
undertook a journey for the continent. Accompanied by a 
great number of virgins, she embarked with them in eleven 
ships ; and having safely arrived at Thiol, in Holland, con- 
tinued her journey thence the Rhine upwards, through Cologne 
to Basle, being on all sides hospitably received. On the advice 
of Antistes Pantalus in Basle, the virgins left their ships ; and 
under his guidance crossed the Alps, and wandered to Rome. 
There, visiting the tombs of the martyrs, and touched by their 
heroic devotion, the unbaptized among them desired to be 
instructed and baptized. Strengthened in their faith, the 
pious company departed from Rome ; and, on their return, 
Cyriacus, with many others, joined them. From Basle they 
descended the Rhine to Mayence. Here Conanus, the bride- 
groom of St. Ursula, met her ; and, encouraged by the example 
of the virgins, he allowed himself to be baptized by St. Pan- 
talus, under the name of (Etherius. Landing in Cologne, the 
holy band was attacked by barbarians hostile to Christianity, 
and all slain ; of whom St. Ursula first fell, refusing the pro- 
positions of marriage from the prince of the Huns, pierced by 
an arrow." 

The account given of the same massacre, by Godfrey of 
Monmouth, who lived in the twelfth century, differs in many 
respects from the foregoing legend, and gives additional parti- 
culars. '< One of the sainted virgins," he relates, '< Cordula 
by name, seized with the fear of death, hid herself in the lower 
parts of a ship ; but the next day, penetrated with contrition, 
and encouraged by the example of the rest of the virgins, she 
embraced death with redoubled zeal." 

Some, who have endeavored to reconcile this story with truth, 
have supposed that the number, 11,000, of the Saint's virgin 
train, arose from confounding the name of one of them, Unde- 
cimilla, with the number, undecim millia ; but, as a legend, I 
prefer it as it stands, as it is much more romantic so, and also 
less likely to be believed. 

The author of the little book from which the above details 
have been translated is evidently a firm believer, and clinches 
his argument in favor of the authenticity of his story with 



KOLN. 91 

amusing naivete. " Is not the number of thousands," he 
observes, " in harmony with the enormous quantity of human 
remains which are deposited in the church?" 

However this sacred exhibition may affect the devout pil- 
grims who visit it, I cannot tell. In me it excited feelings 
rather of disgust than awe ; and the irreverent sacristan, who 
fingered the relics, had a quizzical look about him, which 
savored not a little of his own incredulity. An English party, 
who were being conducted through the church at the same 
time, indulged in a merriment as unseemly as it was melancholy. 

"I say, George, my boy!" exclaimed Pater Familias, in my 
hearing; "Eureka! I have found the summum bonum !" 

"What is it?" responded the innocent youth addressed. 

" Look there !" indicating a fragment of a skeleton in the 
ceiling ; at which miserable joke they all laughed, to the great 
indignation of their guide, who thought they were ridiculing 
his story. 

The Church of St. Gereon is another ossuary, lined with the 
bones of 6000 more saints and martyrs, and possesses, in addi- 
tion, intrinsic attractions for the artist and archaeologist. The 
Museum contains some interesting pictures of the early German 
painters, among which The Last Judgment, by Stephen of 
Cologne, with bright blue angels, is the most remarkable. It 
possesses also some fine pictures of the modern school, the 
most impressive of which is the " Convent Court in a Snow 
Storm," by the prince of modern landscapists — Lessing. 

The best-knoAvn picture in the city is the celebrated Cruci- 
fixion of St. Peter, by Rubens, in the church dedicated to that 
Saint, in which the painter himself was baptized. It has been 
the subject of much good and bad criticism. I was delighted 
and awed by it, though I could not admire it as much as the 
Crucifixions of the same artist in Antwerp Cathedral. The 
peculiarity of the picture is, that the martyred Apostle is 
represented on the cross with his head downward. I do not 
know how consistent this may be with the legend it illustrates ; 
but it has a bizarre effect, which, however it may be deprecated 
by high art, is very powerful. The composition and grouping 
of the picture is equal to the best I have seen. 



92 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

While I remained in the city, I went to see the Tomb of Duns 
Scotus, of course ; and the Sarcophagus of St. Cunibert ; and 
the noble Rathhaus ; and I bought eau de Cologne of Jean 
Maria Farina, himself, as all the world does who come here ; 
and I smelled the stench that Coleridge has immortalized, of 
which the said Jean Maria affords the only antidote ; but all 
these things have been already more than sufficiently described. 

My last souvenir of the town is the house " Jabach," where 
Rubens was born, and where Mary de Medicis died — the unfor- 
tunate Queen, whose epitaph is the terrible sentence of the 
President Henault : — 

" EUe ne fut pas assez surprise de la mort de Henri IV." 

DUSSELDORF. 

Mine host of the Prinz von Preussen, near the station at 
Dusseldorf, gave me an excellent breakfast after my ride from 
Deutz ; and loaned me afterwards the services of a little boy, 
to guide me to the residence of my old friend Whitridge. Our 
walk lay past the statue of the Elector John William, and the 
palace he built, which is now the headquarters of that army of 
great painters who have given a world-wide celebrity to the 
name of their town. I did not find my friend at his lodgings ; 
but a pretty servant-girl directed us to his studio, whither we 
went. It was situated in the suburbs of the town, and we 
crossed in going to it the pleasant part, which in these quiet 
times since the peace of Luneville, has usurped the place of 
the old ramparts. It was still early in the morning, and the 
bright July sun, shining through the trees, and throwing long 
shadows upon the green sward, moved my soul to a thrill of 
Memnon melodies. The very birds, with their sweet music, 
seemed prophesying the welcome I was to receive from country- 
men and friends. 

At the gate of the house to which we had been directed, I 
dismissed my guide ; and, seeing in the garden a comfortable- 
looking man, with a German cast of countenance which indi- 
cated both a high intelligence and a frank courtesy, I half- 



DUSSELDORF. 93 

instinctively addressed him in English. Removing his meer- 
schaum from his lips, and looking up from the fair children he 
had been playing with, he replied in pure Anglo-Saxon ; and, 
inviting me to enter, we strolled down the path to the studio. 
Here the vast cartoons on the walls, the bits of antique armor 
and drapery, old matchlock guns and pistols, and the other et 
cetera of the historical painter's attelier, together with an 
exquisite unfinished picture on his easel, gave me some suspi- 
cions of who my new acquaintance was ; which were confirmed 
in a few moments by the arrival of two other Americans, who 
addressed him as Mr. Leutze ; on which I proffered him the 
homage that a young artist must feel for his country's greatest 
Master. His works, which share with those of Powers and 
Crawford the highest consideration at home, are too well known 
to require description. The cartoon of " Washington at Mon- 
mouth," which had just been completed, possessed all the 
grandeur of conception and breadth, and fire of treatment, for 
which his "Crossing the Delaware" was remarkable. While 
I was admiring this and other works, Whitridge came in ; and 
there were questions of home to be answered, and fond remi- 
niscences of distant friends to be recalled to both of us. 

Learning that my stay would be necessarily very brief, he 
kindly proposed our setting out immediately to visit the town 
and the galleries of art. We went first to the modern exhibi- 
tion, where for a few hours I enjoyed the delight of studying 
the recent pictures of those masters, whose works point to a 
loftier immortality than that of Claude or Salvator ; — Lessing, 
Achenbach, Loy, and others, whose inspiration is of Nature 
herself, spiritualized with the highest poetry, and rhythmical 
with our purest sympathies. 

Now let me pause to suggest a benefit, that the artists here 
enjoy, that might be profitably adopted in our own country. 
The Prussian government, with that wide liberality which has 
so much assisted in producing the most inestimable results in 
art and literature and science, has not only devoted palaces 
to serve as academies in every town, and offered other rewards 
for excellence ; but every year the various galleries, formed of 
the recent works in each city, are carried at the state's expense 



94 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

through them all ; exhibiting now at Dusseldorf, then at Elber- 
field and Berlin, and so on, until they have visited in this way 
every city in the country ; thus making the artist universally 
known, giving scope to criticism and to the cultivation of taste, 
besides the pecuniary advantages thus offered to the artist of 
disposing of his pictures. If this same institution were intro- 
duced, and properly conducted, with us in the United States ; 
and Boston, and Cincinnati, and San Francisco were thus 
bound together by a chain of beauty ; not only would an 
advance in art and liberal taste soon be apparent, but it would 
also be a potent influence for general social refinement ; and 
even the discords of our varied geographical localities and 
interests would be greatly smoothed by the harmony of the 
intellectual union. 

Leaving the gallery, we rambled about the town ; through 
the Alstadt, with its narrow quaint streets, not of the cleanest ; 
and the Neustadt and Karlstadt, with finer and more modern 
structures ; to the Hof kirche, of St. Andrew, where there are 
some fine pictures of the living school ; to the palace, where 
the picture of the Ascension of the Virgin, by Rubens, was 
the most important attraction, and where we looked over a 
part of the famous collection of drawings by the old masters, 
of which there are over fourteen thousand preserved here ; and 
a curious collection of water-color copies of the most celebrated 
Italian pictures of all schools, from the fourth century. 

The prandial hour approaching, we concluded our walk in 
the nicely-scrubbed and sanded dining-room of the little Dutch- 
like inn ; where, by Mr. Whitridge's kind invitation, I had the 
pleasure of meeting Achenbach, Leutze, and Mr. Washington, 
a pupil of the latter, at dinner. About this symposium, with 
its wit, and the pudding in the midst of it, I must be silent. 
It is one of those memories which, if described, would either 
be an exaggeration to alien ears, or too cold for my own 
heart. 

Afterwards, we all went to the Hofgarten ; where, under the 
shade of the trees, and a view of the Rhine before us, we 
talked of home and of art, and watched Messrs. Leutze and 
Washington play at dominoes, until nearly sunset. It was now 



DUSSELDORF. 95 

time for the cars to leave ; and I took my farewells of these 
pleasant companions, unlikely to meet Avith them again, possi- 
bly, in the world, but never to forget them while my heart 
cherishes a single human sympathy. 

I have said nothing of Whitridge's pictures. It would be 
superfluous to do so, for they are well known and appreciated 
at home, as in his foreign residence. Everybody knows the 
fine artist, but I feel it a pleasure to be able to give this tribute 
*o the kind and courteous gentleman. 



VII. 

THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. 

For variety, I went fourth class on the railway between 
Cologne and Bonn, croAvded in a rude, open car, together with 
blue blouses and short jupons ; but the day was fine, and the 
odor of my meerschaum rather agreeable to the good-looking 
peasant beside me, and I could keep my eyes upon the Seven 
Mountains and the other scenery along the road ; so 1 enjoyed 
myself hugely, and would not have exchanged places with my 
gouty acquaintance, who wa3 going the same direction, and 
who, nursing his infirmities, quietly slept on velvet cushions 
the whole way. 

Bonn is a bonnie place in more ways than one, and the Star 
Hotel worthy of its name. I did not visit either the Uni- 
versity^ nor the Museum of Antiquities, nor the Chateau de 
Poppelsdorf, remarkable for its minerals and fossils, and espe- 
cially, I was told, among the latter, for a set of fossil frogs, 
from the mature and perfect croaker down to the most adoles- 
cent tadpole ; but I walked up and down the chestnut avenue, 
where a gay promenade was kept up, of tourists and students, 
visited the Minster and the house of Beethoven, and sketched 
the Bhine from the terrace-garden behind the hotel. 

After dinner, with my invalid friend, I drove to Kreuzberg, 
where a church, formerly a convent, exists. From here the 
view of the hills, baptized in a golden sunset, was most beauti- 
ful. I left it reluctantly, to follow our guide, who showed us 
the sacred stairs, built by the Elector Clement Augustus, in 
imitation of the Seala Santa at Rome. Curiously enough, 
although these are professedly not the real stairs that led to 
Pilate's Judgment Hall, yet we were shown the stains of blood 
which fell from the Saviour's thorn-insulted head as he de- 
scended the marble steps. It is unlawful for any one to ascend 
them except on his knees, an obligation Avhich, I believe, my 
friend Avould have willingly complied with, as a twinge in one 



The Seven Mountains. 97 

of his toes made ordinary walking rather painful to him at the 
moment. 

From this we were led to a vault under the church, remark- 
able for having preserved, in an undecayed state, the bodies of 
twenty-five holy monks. There they lay, in gown and cassock^ 
grinning at one, out of their cofiins, — natural mummies, some 
well preserved, but others shrivelled into melancholy ghastli- 
ness. Is it the odor of sanctity which pervades the vault ? 
Let us make place for these poor pilgrims who believe in the 
miracle. 

From Bonn I took the steamboat early in the morning, and 
in an hour arrived at Konigswinter, where my note-book ad- 
vises me I stopped at the "meanest and dearest hotel on the 
Continent," the Hotel Berlin. I was mistaken in this, but it 
required my future experience to convince me of it. As I 
landed it commenced raining, and I awaited its termination and 
my breakfast rather impatiently in a chill, damp kind of summer 
dining-room, or porch, open on two or three sides. While thus 
indifferently occupied, I was approached by an indignant Eng- 
lishman, whom I had observed striding up and down in great 
wrath ; and he now, apparently, sought me, for the purpose of 
unbosoming himself, and thus preventing a dangerous explo- 
sion. He began by declaiming violently against the exorbitant 
charges of all continental inns, and the one whose hospitality 
we were enjoying in particular. The immediate cause of his 
choler related to the bougies, or wax-candles, he had been 
forced to use the night before. He abruptly promised to teach 
me a lesson, and invited me to follow him. I did so ; when, 
taking me mysteriously up to his room, and locking every door, 
he cautiously opened a large hair trunk, and, emphatically 
pointing down into its depths, said "There !" 

"Well?" I demanded, as I saw the trunk was half full of 
partly burned bougies, and I not unreasonably took him to be 
a peripatetic tallow-chandler, exhibiting specimens of his man- 
ufactures. 

" Well !" I repeated. 

"Well," said he, "you see I do not let them impose upon 
9 



98 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

me. Whenever at the inns they charge the hougie in the bill, 
I carry it away with me." 

Afterwards, when at Geneva, I told this story to some com- 
panions at dinner. I learned that a gentleman, similar to the 
one I had described, had been detained at Dover by the cus- 
tom-house officers, and would have had his baggage confiscated, 
for smuggling candle-ends, but that their having all been 
lighted proved that they were private property. 

My informant had a story of his own, perhaps less apocry- 
phal than his very good epilogue to mine. He was travelling 
with an economical German friend, who was particularly saving 
in the bougies, which, I may state, are perquisites of the ser- 
vants in all European hotels ; and who, in consequence, if not 
prevented, will light two for you when you are conducted to 
your bedroom, for which the most moderate charge will be a 
franc in the bill the next day. "Ludwig," said he, "would 
bag the bougie when it was charged, and carry it in his port- 
manteau to the next stopping-place. When in the evening we 
would move towards our room, the waiter would snatch up a light 
and pursue us. Then would Ludwig run, and it would be neck 
and neck with the servant until he had succeeded in lighting his 
own bit of candle. On one occasion the enemy was too quick for 
him, and had a candle just ready to light when Ludwig entered. 
There was no time to be lost ; so he sprang forward, and be- 
fore the amazed garden was aware, had blown out the light, 
leaving us in the dark. The servant, frightened and aston- 
ished, retired to get a fresh light ; but before he returned, 
Ludwig had drawn a match from his pocket, and was coolly 
pulling off his boots by the light of his own bougie." 

The rain showing no signs of discontinuing, I assumed my 
" Mackintosh" paletot and walked to the foot of the Drachen- 
fels, where I found stables of horses and donkeys, with bright 
red saddles, for the convenience of those who wished to ascend. 
Selecting one of the former, and a conductor with him, I 
assumed the saddle and started off, my guide admonishing the 
poor Rosinante with shouts and kicks to bestir himself, while 
he assisted himself up the ascent by hanging like an animated 
kettle to the miserable creature's tail. I do not know which 



The Seven Mountains. 99 

of the two seemed the most pitiable, but this seemed too bad ; 
and being, from the deficiencies of my German education, 
unable to expostulate, I tickled mj steed in the flank with my 
heel, to induce him to kick off the encumbrance, but the poor 
devil had not the spirit ; so I dismounted, and set my guide a 
moral example by walking unassisted. On our way up I had 
pointed out to me the old quarries from which the stones were 
taken to build the Cathedral of Cologne, called hence the 
"Dombruch," and also the cave of the dragon killed in the 
good old times by the horned Siegfried, the hero of the Nie- 
belungen Lay, from which circumstance the hill derived its 
name of "Dragon's Rock." On the stony cliffs on the sides 
of the path were written the names of hundreds of previous 
tourists ; and being importuned by an artist who carried on 
this business near the top, to allow him to add my illustrious 
name to the others, I indiscreetly consented, and gave him my 
card and a half-franc piece. I either paid him too much or too 
little, for, on returning, I recognised, to my horror, high up on 
an impregnable wall, my name immortalized in bright red let- 
ters two feet long ! 

It cleared up by the time I reached the top, and I had an 
opportunity of sketching the "castled crag" and the other 
objects mentioned in Byron's fine description, which is indeed 
so perfect that it forestalls all I would write about this mag- 
nificent ruin and the hills that it dominates. I have only one 
objection to the noble bard's verses — the line which alludes to 
the peasant girls with deep-blue eyes. It excites expectations 
in the tourist, whereof the fulfilment is but a disappointment. 
The girls are there, and the blue eyes, and the " hands that 
off"er early flowers," and all that; but, eheu dietu! the blue 
eyes look strabismically upon one, and the hands are large and 
not clean. 

Before leaving this beautiful spot, I paid a visit to the Inn 
garden on the top, where, in a pleasant little bower, with the 
Rhine and the noble scenery beneath me, a bottle of Brunen- 
berger on the table, and a cigar in my lips, I read, while I 
rested, the little tale I translate for my readers here. The 
scene of the story lies among the valleys of the Seven Hills, 



100 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

and seems to be the foundation of many German stories, and 
not remotely may have even suggested to our own Irving his 
exquisite "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is entitled 

THE SCEPTIC CONVERTED. 
A LEGEND OF THE PETERSTHAL. 

Among the priests of Heistcrbach there was one W'ho was 
distinguished for his piety and his knowledge. He was known 
as Brother Alwais ; and as he made the assiduous study of the 
Scriptures a daily practice, every one, and even the Abbot 
himself, when it was necessary to explain some difficult and 
obscure passage of the holy fathers or the sacred writings, 
was accustomed to come to learn at that source of wisdom, 
for no other knew like him to explain their meaning and to 
take away the least traces of a doubt. A single point, how- 
ever, he was unable to understand, and this was the constant 
subject of his meditations. It was the saying of the Apostle 
Peter, "A thousand years are but as a day before the Lord ;" 
which tormented, without easing, his mind. Sometimes he 
spent entire days in his cell, thinking on the mystery of these 
words ; but the more he tried to comprehend them, the more 
his doubts multiplied and his incredulity increased, until at 
length his ideas became confounded in such an imbroglio that 
the other brothers feared he w"Ould become insane. One bright 
summer afternoon, lost in these reflections, and fatigued with 
the heat, he laid himself down under a tree in the neighboring 
forest, and fell asleep. 

After a while he was awakened by the vesper-bell, and being 
reminded that it was more than time to return to the convent, 
he aroused himself and proceeded thither, with his head bowed 
down, in his usual meditations. Arriving at the door, he was as- 
tonished that, instead of the lay brother whom he knew, another 
should come and open it for him ; but Alwais attached no im- 
portance to this change, and before he had time to consider the 
matter he heard the chant of the brothers in the church, and 
hurried to take his usual place. It was also occupied by a 
stranger, who regarded him with astonishment equal to his 



ROLANDSECK. 101 

own. Presently he saw, with wonder greater than ever, that 
all the other monks were unknown to him, nor were they less 
surprised to see him. However, the chant ceased, and the 
brothers demanded of him who he was, and what he wanted. 
He named himself, and as he insisted that he belonged to the 
convent, they withdrew from him, with many pious ejaculations, 
thinking he was some insane person. Finally a certain old 
friar among them remembered that he had read in the annals 
of the fraternity how that, several centuries before this period, 
there had lived in the abbey one Alwais, distinguished for his 
profound erudition, and that he had disappeared mysteriously 
one day, without leaving any traces behind him, farther than 
that he had gone to walk in the woods. Alwais named then 
the abbot by whom he had been received into the convent, and 
related all the circumstances attending his stay. After search- 
ing through the musty archives, it was made clearly manifest 
that Alwais had been resuscitated ; and that during the time of 
his sleep, which had appeared to the sceptic but a few hours, 
three centuries had passed. Thus had Heaven, by a miracle, 
made known to men that they must not attempt to fathom the 
words of the Holy Scriptures, nor to make them an object of 
doubt, but rather to believe in them with a child's confidence. 
The lesson was not lost upon the good Alwais, who lived for 
many years afterwards to testify to the truth of the holy writ- 
ings, nor could any one who heard his story ever remain in 
doubt thereafter. 

ROLANDSECK. 

Every wave of the Rhine beats upon some legendary shore. 
From Constance to Rotterdam, and traditionally from the time 
of Germanicus to the present day, its associations have multi- 
plied and become continually more beautiful. Rising in the 
A'ps, and flowing into the ocean, it is at once worthy of its 
birth and its destiny. Always grand in history, in romance it 
surpasses all streams in the world. Every hill upon it has its 
legend, and every valley its tradition. The ruined castles, 
which stand like silent sentinels upon its heights, were all the 
strongholds of feudal lords, intimate with scenes of heroic 
9* 



102 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

daring and lawless rapine, the theatres of superstition and 
murder and riot, and not unfrequently also of gentle love and 
noble chivalry. What wonder is it that when the season of 
their splendor and power had passed away, and the ivy and the 
brier usurped the forsaken hearthstones, that the popular su- 
perstition should have added to the wild tales of such places ? 
Even in more prosaic times and countries an innocent private 
dwelling, that remains too long untenanted, soon acquires an 
evil reputation ; and what more natural corollaries to scenes 
of blood are there than the ghosts of the murdered, or that 
demons and warlocks should haunt the deserted homes of the 
evil-doer? Thus, succeeding the old Earons, though in many 
cases contemporary with them, came the legends of black 
hunters, and spirits of the rocks ; of Woden, the god with ten 
hands ; the maid of the black fen ; the devil who erected his 
altar at Teufelstein ; the demon Urian, who crossed the Rhine, 
with the banks upon his back, that he had taken from the sea- 
shore, with wdiich he intended to destroy Aix-la-Chapelle, 
Avhen, fatigued with his load, and deceived by an old woman, 
he stupidly dropped it, where to this day it is called Loosberg. 
Mystic lights burned in enchanted castles ; invisible songstresses 
lured travellers to destruction ; water-sprites and witches were 
seen ; and all the ten thousand other impossible adventures 
and phenomena, with which German literature abounds, oc- 
curred. Li these different times it is impossible to appreciate 
many of these tales as probably our ancestors would have 
received them. Others there are, however, which, beautiful 
in themselves, the enchantment of the poet has made doubly 
dear ; and of none is this more true than the story of Roland 
and the fair Hildegunde. 

I went to Rolandseck, the evening after my visit to the 
Drachenfels, a quiet pretty village on the opposite side of tie 
river. Viewed from the deck of the steamboat, the desolate 
arch and ruin of the castle of Roland is less imposing than its 
rival of the Dragon; but when approached it was still more 
beautiful. Here, according to the legend, the famous nephew 
of Charlemagne lived, a hermit for many years, gazing with 
sad eyes upon the convent, in the river, where his betrothed 



ROLANDSECK. 103 

bride had retired, taking the veil upon hearing a false report, 
that he had fallen at Roncesvalles. Schiller, in his " Knight 
of Toggenburg," has thrown the graces of his poetry around 
the story, and made it too familiar for me to elaborate here. 

The next day I visited the island of Nonenwerth, and ex- 
amined the convent. There were a party of ladies and gen- 
tlemen, the suite of some German prince, viewing it at the 
same time, and their well dressed figures strolling about under 
the trees, destroyed all illusions I had hoped to have expe- 
rienced, and which the sight of a nun's stole might have 
aroused. As it was, one beautiful girl, with a descent as far 
back as Roland ; with her flaxen hair and blue eyes kept me 
thinking of Ilildegrunde, in spite of all anachronisms of her 
costume. It was impossible to imagine anything of Roland 
in the prince, however, who was a small fat man, and wore a 
silk hat. 

The Hotel Roland is a most excellent one, and appeared, 
from the guests I met there, to be a favorite place of resort, 
for quiet orderly people ; students from the English univer- 
sities, on their " reading tour," and professional men from the 
city, to whom its still retirement brought an agreeable con- 
trast. I do not know of a pleasanter, more romantic summer- 
home anywhere. 

I thought I had dismissed legends when I went to bed, but 
a singular print on the wall of my room, representing a Bishop 
baptizing an immense multitude of children, attracted my 
attention. Referring to my book of Rhine stories, for an 
explanation, I found the following story, of which the print 
was probably an illustration. 

" One morning a poor woman with two little children pre- 
sented herself before the Countess of Henebcrg, and implored 
charity. This the proud Countess not only refused, but, an- 
gered at the intrusion into her fine apartments, she harshly 
called the poor woman an impertinent, and bade her take hei'- 
self away ; and as she did not comply with as much alacrity 
-xs her ladyship desired, she continued her rude language, cry- 
ing out, without pity, < Begone this instant, it would bo a sin 
to have compassion on you. You are a woman leading a bad 



104 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

life; these two children cannot be of the same father!" and 
other similar expressions. At these outrageous words, the 
unhappy woman quitted her humble posture. Her suppli- 
cating looks became menacing, and a dark fire came out of 
her eyes. " Heaven's malediction on thee, heart of rock !" 
she exclaimed, " mayest thou, as a punishment, give life to as 
many children as there are days in the year !" With these 
words she left the apartment. The Countess only laughed on 
hearing this menace, which seemed to her ridiculous, but some- 
time afterward, she felt as if she were to become a mother, 
and very soon, in anguish and torment, she gave birth to three 
hundred and sixty-five children. As they were born they 
died, and the mother, having become insane through fear, 
died a short time after. 

There is shown even to-day, not far from the Hague, the 
tomb of the Countess and the children, and there may be seen 
at the same time the font, in which were baptized the three 
hundred and sixty-five infants. 

THE DAMPFSCHIFF. 

The Rhine steamboat is a peculiar institution. Anything 
more inconsistent with the genius loci could not well be im- 
agined. Steam seems to be the most obvious antitheton of 
romance. The Nymph of the Lurlei becomes a vulgar echo, 
when she coughs back the noise of the escape pipe ; and the 
grand old castles on the hills, full of dreams of Pepin and 
Napoleon, are the stupid memorials of very old fogy times ; 
or thus, at least, does the Dampfschiif impertinently puff its 
opinion in their faces. Yet in these modern times, a tour on 
the Rhine would not be half so pleasant, apart from the incon- 
venience, without them. There is both pleasure and food for 
reflection in the contrast they afford : to come down from some 
old legendary shrine, from reveries, perhaps, of Charlemagne, 
and plunge at once into the nineteenth century, with its rush- 
ing wheels, its toilettes, and its Murray's Handbooks. Again, 
steamboats, all the world over, are more democratic than any 
other method of travel; the diligence has its divisions of coupe, 



The Dampfschiff. 105 

and banquette, and interior ; the railcars have four chisses ; 
but all mankind can meet on the deck of a steamer, without 
more than very trivial distinctions. Thus I have seen and 
learned more, not merely of German, but of Tourist character, 
in one day's steamboating on the Rhine, than I have by a 
week's travel otherwise. 

These boats, compared to the most diminutive upon our 
Western rivers, are very small, and the accommodations for 
sleeping very poor, but as one rarely ever passes a night on 
one of them, the inconvenience is not felt. In the day time, 
the deck, protected with awnings, and scattered with numerous 
benches and chairs, is at all times during the summer a plea- 
sant place. 

It was a bright morning, made all the more beautiful by the 
rain that had fallen the day before, when I left Rolandseck 
for Coblentz, on one of these little packets. The vineyards 
and forests seemed greener, and the bold cliffs clearer, than 
they had appeared for several days. For some hours I lounged 
about the deck, gazing solely at the scenery we were quite 
rapidly passing ; — the basalt cliff of Unkelstein ; Apollinaris- 
berg, crowned with a little gothic chapel, peering out from 
among the trees ; the Erpeler Lei, with its rocky sides draped 
in vines ; the ruin of Ockenfels ; the town of Lintz ; the castle 
of Rhineck ; Andernach, and farther on the Weisthurm, the 
Turris Alba of the Romans, marking the spot where Caesar, 
two thousand years ago, first crossed the Rhine ; where Na- 
poleon also crossed, in spite of the Austrian opposition ; and 
where now stands the tomb of General Hoche. 

At first, I had scarcely noticed my fellow passengers at all, 
when suddenly in the midst of my meditations, an Anglo- 
Saxon voice, calling to the steward, inquisitive of lunch ; the 
fragrant steam of soup, and the faint explosion of pale-ale 
corks below ; recalled me to the present. The vessel was 
crowded with passengers ; old Englishmen, bluff' and hearty, 
and full of strange oaths ; younger ditto, supping brandy and 
water, with incipient moustaches that seemed to have borrowed 
their hue from the feeble liquor ; pretty plump English maid- 
ens, and fat English mothers, admiring every ruin that Murray 



106 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

approves, and not noticing the others at all : such persons, with a 
sprinkling of the more indigenous inhabitants, occupied princi- 
pally the after part of the boat. Forward of the funnel, were 
groups of poorer or more independent travellers ; — peasants ; 
market men and women ; artists, in wide-aAvake hats, and bearded 
like the pard ; students in outlandish garbs ; and travelling 
'■'•liandwer'ker' — a company far more picturesque, and decidedly 
more jolly, than their more aristocratic fellow voyagers abaft. 
While I was making these observations, the steward passed me 
with a tray of most tempting covers, and bottles that sparkled 
like Hebe's eyes. It was late in the afternoon ; a fine ruin was 
near at hand ; — should I wait until we had passed it ? a finer 
appeared beyond it, and — "pop!" went a beer bottle down 
below, and guided by the generous gurgle I descended. 

When I reappeared, a strange scene presented itself. We 
had received a considerable augmentation to our number of 
passengers during my absence from the deck. They were, for 
the most part, students from one of the universities, whom some 
holiday or anniversary had apparently sent oif on a strange tour. 
Jolly, rollicking dogs they were, dressed with extravagant 
phantasy, in immense boots, with jingling spurs; long basket- 
hilted sabres ; bright scarfs and feathered head dresses. One 
fair-haired, wasp-waisted fellow, in a green doublet, looking like 
young Ot,ho himself, was their seeming leader, though the 
boisterous equality of all made it difiicult to decide. One un- 
acquainted with the student character, would have imagined 
them to be all "tight," for no extravagance appeared too great 
for them ; but with all their hilarious abandon, they never ex- 
ceeded the bounds of a certain dignity ; and I was not long in 
discovering that their intoxication was rather the exuberance 
of manly vigorous youth, than the result of the wine they had 
drank. Two important characters were the standard and cup 
bearers of the party. The first was a heavy grave looking 
personage, whose gray eyes twinkled with infinite humor, which 
his tongue continually translated, if the shouts of laughter 
which greeted his sallies were to be trusted ; the other was a 
splendidly formed youth, with flowers in his hat, who looked 
like a young Bacchus. He bore a large cow's-horn, richly 



The Dampfschiff. 107 

chased, and mounted with a coat of arms in silver, as long as 
if it were intended for a cornucopia, which he constantly filled 
from a keg of beer on the deck, and with a kind of laughing 
imperative courtesy, handed around to all the passengers. Nor 
could any one refuse to pledge them in the draught. The 
young English ladies, to mamma's horror, simperingly took a 
horn ; mamma was made to follow suit ; and even the male 
Britons were not able to refuse. As for me, when Bacchus 
offered the quaint cup, I drank so deeply, that I quite won his 
heart, and we doubtless should have soon become intimate 
friends, but for the Avant of an intelligible means of communi- 
cation. There was no respite in the fun, which grew faster 
and more furious every moment. Now their band would per- 
form some inspiriting national air ; and then gathering around 
their leader, who beat the time with his sword, they would 
chant out some Avild student chorus, gesticulating and em- 
bracing, and leaping with their enthusiasm, until the coldest 
of the other passengers could not help sharing in their excite- 
ment. At length, about sunset, we reached a small town, 
where they were formed arm in arm, in pairs, and marched 
off, with colors flying and music playing, up the bank, where 
they were saluted with cannon, and the cheers of the assembled 
citizens. As the steamer moved off, I caught sight of their 
line filing off through an upper street, singing, as they went, 
one of their old refrains. 

Night now came down upon the scene — night serene in 
heaven and on earth. Gradually the vineyards disappeared, 
and only the dark outlines of the hills remained, standing out 
broadly against the stars. The noisy riot that had reigned on 
board gave way to a half melancholy stillness. Ladies were 
shawled and cloaked. Parties grouped themselves quietly 
about the deck, conversing in low tones, or watching mutely, 
like myself, the myriad twinkling lights, in heaven, and shim- 
mering down in the still waters, from an occasional illuminated 
window. The excitement that had passed predisposed all for 
reverie ; and I, reclining on a bench, by the vessel's side, gave 
myself up to the full enjoyment of the time and the scene. 
Listening to the splash of the waters, and the cry of the night 



108 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

birds, as if they told intelligible talcs of the past ; until that 
past, so mighty and so glorious, became my present. The 
ruined castles on the hills gloomed with unwonted majesty in 
the obscurity, while my fancy once more peopled them with 
their old inhabitants. Again their banners waved from the 
Avails ; knights and ladies thronged their apartments ; and I 
almost seemed to hear the fall of the drawbridge, and the 
challenge of the sentinel at the gates. At other times, I 
seemed to see Cnesar's victorious legions, sweeping down the 
steeps ; and, anon, a band of Crusaders, with helm and steel, 
seeking the Saracen and the Holy Sepulchre. Then some old 
tale of a White Lady, or an Erl King, possessed my imagina- 
tion ; or a fragment of forgotten poetry rose to my lips. Then, 
when I was thinking about Napoleon, and his career, the sud- 
den moon arose, and I saw the massive walls of Ehrenbreit- 
STEIN — the Broad Stone of Honor — before me ; could even 
see the gleam on the muskets of the guard ; and my reverie 
came to an end in 

COBLENTZ. 

Americans abroad have occasion frequently to defend the 
institutions of their country, opposed to those of the monarchies 
they visit. There are, I believe, loyalists, not less intelli- 
gent than sincere, in every kingdom on earth ; good and wise 
men, who honestly believe "the king can do no wrong," and 
who doubtless would have believed in Nero, had their lots been 
cast under his reign. I have even found myself opposed in 
this way to Avell informed Russians, and not unfrequently with 
the citizens of western Europe. The objection always raised 
against a republican form of government, is its perishable na- 
ture, and elaborate comparisons with fallen democracies are 
triumphantly proclaimed to prove our inevitable and speedy 
ruin. 

I was never formed for a controversialist. I had rather build 
the airiest of castles, than defend the most solid one. There- 
fore I doubt whether I ever made a democrat of any one of 
these monarchists ; but my own belief in our destiny and dura- 
tion has been confirmed to implicit faith, by the comparisons 1 



COBLENTZ. 109 

have had the opportunities of making with other states abroad. 
Every vise affixed to my passport has been a new argument in 
our favor ; and the immense fortifications, bristling with can- 
non ; the burdensome armies ; and the constant watchfulness 
which seem necessary to preserve monarchies, not only from 
strangers, but from their own subjects, speak most eloquently 
to me of insecurity, and prophesy unmistakeably of destruction. 
Government, like virtue, that has to be guarded, exists only in 
idea. It is not real, and therefore cannot live long. 

These were part of the reflections with which I regarded the 
stupendous fortifications which surround Coblentz; consisting of 
a numerous chain of forts, on both sides of the river. I only 
visited, however, Ehrenbreitstein, the bulwark of Prussia, and, 
from the time of the Romans to the present, a military strong- 
hold. It seems invincible ; like Gibraltar, it is hewn in great 
part out of the natural rock, whose steep slopes are inaccessible 
to scaling ladders, and impregnable to ball. Its resources, in the 
way of magazines and the accommodation of troops, are also 
of the most perfect character. These letters, however, have 
properly nothing to do with aught but the picturesque of travel, 
and in truth, I know but little of the uses of buttresses and 
ramparts, except as they add interest to a sketch, for which 
purpose I prefer them in ruins. Omitting, therefore, all the 
jargon of military enginery, let us look on the fortress as 
the commanding feature of the landscape, and a mute recorder 
of grand historical events. 

There are many points to which people go, to see it ; the 
bridge of boats ; the PfafFendorfer Ilohe, and finer than all, the 
hill of the Chartreuse, from which the tourist is enabled to take 
in, at one coup d'oeil, the towering battlements of the castle ; 
the hills and vineyards of the Rhine and the Moselle, and the 
many spires and domes of the city itself. I can never forget the 
walk I took on the side of the river, just above the castle. The 
summit of the hill formed a level table-land, used by the troops 
for a parade ground, covered here and there with trees, while its 
slopes were brilliant with verdure and the bloom of vines. Even 
where the precipitous sides seemed to defy all peaceful art, the 
ingenuity and industry of man, which bids the desert to blos- 
10 



110 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

som, had overcome tlie barrenness. The vines, in some places, 
were even planted in baskets of mould, placed in the crevices 
of the rocks ; and the earth, thus protected from the washing 
of the rains, yields an excellent wine. May no redder blood 
ever stain the ground under these guns ! 

Seated on the brink of this height, while finishing my sketch, 
I repeated to myself Byron's spirited description of the shat- 
tered walls of the castle, and thought of the repulses the 
French had had before them, when even the grand Louis Qua- 
torze was disappointed of his wished-for sight of its surrender ; 
and how after more than a century, it at length fell into their 
hands, after the starved garrison had paid a florin and a half for 
a meagre cat, and horseflesh had sold at thirty kreutzers the 
pound ! As a contrast to this famine, let us observe that the 
restoration of Ehrenbreitsten to its present strength, has cost 
the Prussian government more than five millions of dollars. 

No tourist at Coblentz, ever neglects to visit the monument 
of the young and chivalrous General Marceau, the modern 
Bayard : — 

" O'er -whose early tomb 

Tears, big tears gushed from the rough soldier's lid, 

Lamenting and yet envying such a doom. 

* s- * * * * * 

For he was freedom's champion, one of those, 

The few in number who had not o'crstept 

The charter to chastise, which she bestows 

On such as yield her weapons ; he had kept 
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept." 

It stands near the road, a little below the town, and is one 
of the bright incidents in warlike history, that one may love 
to contemplate. 

In the city itself there is little to record ; the same palaces, 
churches, and squares, that one soon gets so accustomed to see, 
that they hardly seem worth describing. The church of St. 
Castor I visited because it is over a thousand years old, and 
contains a beautiful tomb of Cuno von Ealkenstein. As I was 
leaving it, I was accosted by a beggar woman, who asked me 
for a "little something," in Erench. I rather rudely replied, 
"I will give you nothing," when with a readiness and pathos 



i 



COBLEXTZ. 111. 

that ■would have done honor to a daughter of the green isle, 
<' Merci, monsieur ! that is very little," she said meekly, where- 
upon I gave her something more. 

There is a fountain in the square before this church, com- 
memorating by an inscription, the invasion of Russia by the 
French. Soon after it was cut, the Russians pursuing the re- 
treating army of Napoleon, passed through Coblentz on their 
way to Paris ; and their general added the sarcastic addition 
to the previous memorial, " Vu et approuv^ par nous. Com- 
mandant Russe de la ville de Coblcnce, Janvier l®'", 1814" — a 
silly bravado, however, and false in its intended meaning. It 
was the winter, and not the Russ, that defeated the Corsican. 

The great square before the palace is the most agreeable 
promenade within the town. Here I used to come every day, 
and listen to the brilliant music of the king's band, and watch 
the other tourists, and the peasant girls, with their embroidered 
caps, and silver gilt arrows and stilettoes, stuck coquettishly 
through their back hair. 



VIII. 

KNAPSACK AND STAFF. 

Not the least picturesque and delightful town on the Rhine 
is that of St. Goar. From its very origin, it boasts a connexion 
with the marvellous ; for here it was that the good old Saint, 
whose name it bears, proved his sanctity, by hanging his thi'ead- 
bare cloak upon a sunbeam. Near it, are the remains of the 
once formidable Castle of Rhinefels, the most extensive ruin 
on the river ; which, like Ehrenbreitstein, baffled the power of 
Louis the Fourteenth, and only fell before Napoleon. Opposite 
are the ruins of the Mouse, the Cat, the Reichenberg, the Swiss 
Valley, and the fabulous Rock of the Lurlei, the Syren of the 
Rhine. I spent several delightful days amid these poetical 
scenes ; roving over the hills ; climbing over rocks, and up old 
towers ; gazing away into lovely distances ; and gathering wild 
strawberries, and blue-bells from the crevices of old ruins. The 
most interesting excursion is to the Castle of the Mouse. Its 
lord, Kuno von Falkenstein, whose tomb is in St. Castor, at 
Coblentz, was an extraordinary villain, even for the middle ages ; 
an arrant swashbuckler, as ever tortured a Jew, or robbed a 
village ; who cared for neither God nor Kaiser, and whom the 
devil himself could not frighten. His last exploit was to steal 
the silver bell from the steeple of Velmich — a bell which had 
rung out the knell of his father, and rejoiced at his own birth. 
The worthy Prior, under the protection of the cross and his 
holy robes, ventured near him to recover it. "What!" cried 
the infuriate Baron; " he wants his bell, does he?" and he 
swore a big oath that he should have it. So he ordered his 
servants to tie it around the poor monk's neck, and thus threw 
them both down the oubliette of the castle, which he caused to 
be filled up with great stones. Soon after, the lord was taken 
ill ; and that night the attendants, who were watching, heard 
with terror the deep tones of the silver bell rising from the 
earth. The next morninir Falkenstein died : and since that 



Knapsack and Staff. 113 

time, on every anniversary of his death, the peasants hear its 
muffled knell ringing out to the night. 

The rival Castle of the Cat, above Goarhausen, affords a 
beautiful view, but is less interesting in story. They are both 
among the best preserved ruins on the Rhine. The Swiss 
Valley offers many attractions for an afternoon walk or ride. 
In its remote recesses, the peasants have preserved more of 
their primitive characteristics than the tourist who confines 
himself only to the towns on the river, will be likely ever to 
see elsewhere. I was myself struck with the suddenness of 
the change in the people, which even a brief excursion exhibited. 
I met shepherds and vine-dressers, in a careless, half-naked 
picturesqucness ; and wild-looking, sun-burnt girls — the very 
figures that the landscape demanded — before I had scarcely 
penetrated beyond the sound of the steamboat. The vale has 
but little that is Alpine about it, but its little rustic farm-houses 
and innumerable mills ; and "the clear, riotous brook, which 
dashes down a hundred cascades ; all shut in between bold hills, 
crowned Avith ruined castles, made it a scene of unwonted 
loveliness. 

All these attractions I was obliged to leave, much too soon for 
their complete enjoyment. On a fair Sunday morning I 
attended the Protestant church in St. Gear, and listened to a 
service of which I did not understand a word ; then, buckling 
on my knapsack, for the first time in real earnest, I took the 
road for Obcrwessel. I had by this time tried nearly every 
possible way of locomotion ; and let me assure the reader, that 
I had never, in any oilier mode, found the same pleasure that, 
for the next few days of my peripatetic travel, I enjoyed. The 
sense of perfect freedom and exhilaration, contrasted with the 
cramped fatigue of the diligence, or even the comparative com- 
fort of a packet, was indescribable. When I got tired, there 
was always a green sward and shady bower inviting repose, and 
a fine view imploring a place in my portfolio. If hungry, I 
had only to unbuckle my knapsack, and dine without any 
bother of servants, or the fear of an exorbitant bill to inter- 
rupt digestion. The wayside spring afforded a draught superior 
to Rudesheim, when I was athirst. 
10* 



114 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

The sun was still high when I started, but a fresh breeze 
made the air delightful. I trudged on, through the quaint old 
streets, and down the quiet grass-fringed road, until I came 
where the river rushed through narrow banks, and, opposite, 
the bare black volcanic cliff of the Lurlei gloomed over the 
waters. Here at the mouth of a small grotto, I was accosted 
by a retailer of echoes, an old man, the sole worshipper now 
that the Lurlei has left ; who, for a few groschen, awoke the 
mysterious reverberations of the rocks, with a gun and with a 
trumpet. The report of the gun was flung abruptly back in 
our faces, like a peal of thunder, or as if the angered deity of 
the cliff, in rising, had thrown down half a mountain Avith the 
effort ; but when the horn was blown, the simple notes returned 
with innumerable repetitions, fading gradually among the hills, 
like the bugles of a retreating army. I did not wonder at the 
superstition that has clung to such a haunted spot; and I 
thought how startled the hunter must have been, who first heard 
returned to his ears the softened notes of his horn, or when 
his dogs aroused a kennel of angry echoes with their baying. 
Almost immediately below the cliff whirls the drunken Gewir ; 
and above it are the dangerous rapids of the Bank, where the 
river, deriving an impetus from a sudden bend in the shore, dashes 
wildly over the sunken rocks. The passage of this spot has 
ever been perilous, and especially to the immense rafts which 
formerly navigated the stream ; frequently, indeed, have entire 
crews been lost here. This circumstance, added to the myste- 
rious echo of the place, and its wierd wild beauty of scenery, 
doubtless was the origin of the superstition, that the Lurlei 
was haunted by a beautiful n^rniph — a beguiling Undine — whose 
sweet voice, heard in the still evening, accompanying the black- 
bird's whistle, or mocking the boatman's song, has often lured 
the passing voyager to seek her, and has led him to a nuptial 
couch of death, deep under the waves. 

Thinking of these old tales, until I would scarcely have been 
startled at the appearance of the syren herself, I strolled 
onward. Every moment some new and lovely view presented 
itself; now a fair hill, entirely covered with vineyards; then 
a grove of acacias, or old and gnarled oaks ; and anon, immense 



Knapsack and Staff. 115 

dark rocks, "huge as despair," hanging over my head, seemed 
threatening to fall. Then there was the beautiful river hallo"w- 
ing it all, with distant villages upon its banks, and distant cas- 
tles upon its hill-tops ; while along the road, wild flowers of 
every freak and form, bind-weed, mallow, yellow gentian, blue 
bells, and scarlet berries, some in bud and others in blossom, 
grew with the luxuriance of a parterre. Birds, too, sang above 
and around me ; and the evening breeze, rustling the leaves 
and dispersing the odors, sometimes freighted with the sound 
of the vesper bell of a far-off village, or the vesper hymn from 
an unseen chapel, folded its wings about me, and bore me angelic 
company. Peasant girls, coarse and rudely formed at other 
times, seemed pretty with their bright Sunday faces, walking, 
or riding on donkeys with crimson saddles ; and their guttural 
i'' gut tag!'' as they replied to my passing salute, seemed full 
of melody and kindness. I now passed the rocks of the 
" Seven Sisters," the eternal monuments of the cruelty and 
coquetry of seven fair girls, the daughters of the Lord of 
Schomberg ; who, according to the legend, being as beautiful 
as the day, turned the heads and the hearts of all the young 
knights, far and near. But their hearts were of icy stone ; 
and whoever wooed them, won only despair. This was con- 
tinued for years ; but at length they met with a merited fate, 
and were appropriately turned to seven pillars of stone, which 
may be seen, rearing their heads above the water, whenever 
the Rhine is at a low stage. 

I gazed for some time on this stony metamorphosis ; for, of 
all the traditions I have yet heard, this one sounds to me the 
least questionable. Believe it, oh, fair maidens of my country ! 
Believe it, lovely daughters of the West I Believe it, and 
tremble, lest, in some day of retribution ye wot not of, ye may 
be turned into sawyers to wreck disgusting flatboats ! 

On turning an abrupt corner of rock, the lofty towers of 
Ochsenthurm, the white walls of Liebfrauenkirche, and the 
many-turretcd walls and gothic buildings of Oberwessel, came 
in sight; and the prospect of an approaching dinner, and a 
bottle of the wine for Avhich this village is famous, drove all 
the romance out of my head. 



116 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 



GOLDENER PFROPFENZIEHER. 

I strolled into Obei-wessel, delighted with my walk, more 
than I was wearied by it ; and, sauntering up the main street, 
made my first effort in German, by speaking bad English to a 
fat, scow-built man, who, with his taffrail toward me, was seem- 
ingly moored to a kind of parapet, and zealously emulating 
the steamboat on the river, with his pipe. Not without diffi- 
culty, I finally made myself understood, the result of which 
was my new acquaintance Aveighing anchor, and very cour- 
teously showing me down a dozen stone steps, up an alley, 
through a gateway, and into another street ; where, opposite, the 
Goldener Pfropfenzieher Hof stared me full in the face. The 
fagade of the inn strangely resembled a face, with little square 
eyes, and gaping mouth; surmounted by a cocked hat; while 
from a lofty pole, on the apsis of the cocked hat, floated black 
and white streamers, like a grandee's plumes. 

I was met on the steps by a number of persons, who gazed 
curiously at me. Among them was the landlord, a jolly young 
man, who did not speak a word of English ; and, as that com- 
prised nearly the extent of my acquaintance with Dutch, we 
were compelled to meet on the neutral ground of French. 
Whether the fault was in my pronunciation, or in his powers 
of comprehension, I do not know, but wo both succeeded but 
little bettor in this; but, as he .shrugged his shoulders, and 
exclaimed, with peculiar emphasis, " Oui, M'slcur, c'est la tres 
bong!" to everything I said, I concluded it was all right, and 
intimated my desire to dine. Soon, in one corner of a great, 
red-curtained apartment, with pictures of the saints on the 
walls, a cosy little table — with the whitest cloth in the world — 
smoked with a very good dinner ; if such singular rencontres 
as roast duck and apple pie, and partridge and pudding, were 
not objectionable. The wine was very good, and as cheap 
almost as water. While it was being prepared, I was shown to 
my room in an upper story, which possessed a fine view, out of 
one of the square eyes, of the river and the hills opposite. It 
was pretty well furnished, with the exception that the bedstead 



Golden ER Pfropfenzieher. lit 

had the usual German brevity ; and, if fossilified, and dug up 
by future savans, would afford analogical evidence that the 
present race, who sleep in them, were only four feet high. As 
if to make up for this longitudinal delinquency, there were two 
beds — one to sleep on, and the other to cover one. Apropos 
of which eternal feather coverbeds, are told many good stories, 
the latest and best of which is by a recent traveller, who 
describes an honest Irishman, who, seeing the short allowance 
of bedstead, and the downy bed which the servant heaped on 
top of him, begged that domestic " to send up the gentleman 
who was to sleep atop of him, as soon as possible ; as he wanted 
to go to sleep ;" imagining that the guests were, in this way, 
piled up in layers to the ceiling. 

After dining, I went into the coffee-room, to indulge in a 
demi-tasse and a cigar, and if possible to procure some informa- 
tion from my host. "While waiting for him and the coffee, I 
was surprised to see, hanging on the wall, a magnificent cari- 
cature of the name of the inn (The Golden Corkscrew). It 
was a splendid sketch ; and I was not at all surprised, when 
the landlord appeared, to learn that it was by Schrodter, a 
Diisseldorf artist of distinction. It was intended for the sign 
of the house, but its proprietor appreciated it too well to sus- 
pend it upon his outer walls. It had been painted one of these 
past summers, in a few hours — a souvenir of the artist's sojourn, 
when sketching in the neighborhood. I copied it into my 
sketch-book before Ijaving. In reply to my inquiries, I found 
that there was not a man in the town who spoke English ; he 
could not, although he kept the best hotel. I did not wonder 
at this, when I came to write my name in the register ; the 
last arrival preceding mine was that of a Frenchman, who had 
stopped here to dine three months before. I at once gave way 
to a feeling of joy ; for I seemed to have found at least one 
place where tourists had not been. This one town possessed 
virgin attractions still. I, whose greatest annoyance had been 
guides and valets-de-place, hitherto, was now at liberty to look 
and linger, when and where I pleased. I felt perfectly free 
and joyous. "Come!" said I, "we will explore this terra 
incognita;" and seizing my hat, and intimating my desire to the 



118 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

host, a small boy was furnished me to conduct me to the Castle ; 
and I sallied forth to see the lions of 



oberwessel. 

Five groschen bound Hans Katzel to me, heart and soul. I 
learned his name, by hearing a compatriot apply it to him ; for, 
to every interrogatory of mine, his invariable and only reply 
■was " ja !" He led me first to a cottage near the church ; from 
■which a little weasen-faced old woman, with a bunch of rusty 
keys, soon issued, and conducted me to see the chapel — five hun- 
dred years old, she said. We entered it through a little church- 
yard, almost full of graves ; all of them with some sad tribute 
of grief and afiFection remaining. Some of these were plain 
crosses, others crucifixes, and many were but wreaths or beds 
of flowers, with tall white candles planted in the midst of them. 
Before a shrine in the corner, some peasants were at prayers. 
They turned their heads to look at me as I approached, though 
their lips moved and their hands continued to run over their beads 
as they gazed. Entering through an elaborately-sculptured 
porch, I found the church itself bare and uninteresting. It was 
of imposing size, but had fallen a victim to whitewash, and had 
been ruined. The altar-piece, of richly gilt carved wood, was 
of exquisite workmanship, representing a number of niches, 
filled with prophets and saints. The evening light, streaming 
through the painted glass windows, also had a fine eifect. I 
wandered around it, looking at some bad half-faded frescoes, 
and examined the effigies of various knio-hts and nobles of 
Schomberg, in the niches around. All would have been ludi- 
crous in any other place. One knight, with rays sticking out 
of his head, like feathers from an Indian's skull, was intensely 
knock-kneed, in order to get his legs into the niche ; his neigh- 
bor — a little fat lord — was as much bowed in his extremities, for 
no other reason apparent under heaven, than to make room for 
his helmet between them. Then, there were ladies in ruffs and 
stomachers ; and swaddled babies, like dried papooses or 
unfledged chrysalises. Rewarding the old woman for her trou- 
ble, we left the church, and proceeded up the mountain, behind 



Oberwessel. 119 

the town, where the ruined Castle of Schomberg — the Beautiful 
Hill — clung like an eagle to its loftj eyrie. The way was 
difficult, and would have been dangerous to one subject to giddi- 
ness, or when the rocks were made slippery with the rain ; but, 
when there, the view more than repaid the weariness and peril 
of the undertaking. 

Far beyond the village, and the hills, amid which the Rhine 
meandered, loomed up a line of mountains, clothed in misty 
purjjle ; and beyond them the sun was taking a gradual leave 
of the world, through bars of fire and gold. On another side, 
the prospect lay up an immense valley, down which a silvery 
stream rushed, amid rocks and willows. The hill-sides smiled, 
like Bacchus, under wreaths of vines and corn. The sound of 
the village bells arose like incense in the evening air ; and from 
out of some nest in the ruins, came the song of a blackbird. 
Below, were almost perpendicular crags ; and above, the lofty 
and blackened towers of the ruin were brightened by the sunset, 
as by the poetry of their evening. 

Byron has celebrated the lone crag of the Drachenfels, and 
Schiller has sanctified Rolandseck ; yet neither of these beau- 
tiful ruins can compare, in either picturesqueness of form or 
grandeur of proportion, with this one, that still awaits its poet. 
I clambered up within its walls, startling an owl from its perch 
in doing so. Here were vast apartments, with their ruined 
fireplaces yet remaining — the saddest things that can be con- 
templated in ruin ; lofty and numerous towers ; arches ; flights 
of steps; the still remaining evidences of ancient "buttresses 
and coigns of vantage;" — all eloquent of tradition and adven- 
ture. I thought — as I wandered over the weed-o'ergrown floors, 
and climbed decayed staircases, and peered down dark oubli- 
ettes — of the household gods that once warmed the cold hearths ; 
of the revelry and riot and wrong that had once reigned within 
these walls. I imagined myself now in the bower of the seven 
adamantine virgins of the Rhine, and tried to conjure up the 
ghost of even one of the discarded suitors. All was silent ; the 
tall grass rustled in the crevices, and looking up, I saw a little 
patch of melancholy stars, shining down through the roofless 
walls. I had not gazed my fill, but my guide began to look 



120 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

anxiously at the deepening twilight ; and I reluctantly signi- 
fied my readiness to return. We descended by a shorter, but 
even more perilous, path than the one by which we went up, 
winding frequently around the extreme brink of precipices. 
Slowly and cautiously I followed towards where, one by one, 
the lights commenced twinkling in many a cottage window. 
Near the bottom of the descent was a chapel, erected to the 
memory of St. Werner, a boy, who is said to have been cruci- 
fied here some centuries ago by the Jews ;— just before an 
extensive and well-merited persecution of these wealthy but 
unfortunate criminals occurred. 



SUNDAY NIGHT IN PRUSSIA. 

When I returned to my inn, I found the Golden Corkscrew 
the scene of a confusion and dissipation most strange to my 
Protestant eyes. The whole of the second floor was occupied 
by numbers of men and girls ; drinking wine, smoking, and 
dancing. For the latter purpose, a large room Avas set apart, 
ornamented with red curtains ; with a bronzed plaster cast of 
King Frederick at one end, balanced with the effigy of some 
mythological divinity, without pantaloons, at the other. In 
order to observe the proceedings, I ordered a bottle and a cigar, 
and seated myself near one of the tables, surrounded by a group 
of bacchanals of both sexes. The young men were exceedingly 
gallant and liberal in their attentions, and the frauleins appeared 
most amiable. Whether from a scarcity of goblets, or whether 
the gentlemen chose this way to annul the acidity of their 
wine ; or whether it was mere gallantry, I know not ; but every 
swain first pressed his cup to the lips of his blooming partner, 
before imbibing himself. Now a tremulous warning from the 
fiddle, or an anticipative grunt from the bass viol, would pro- 
ceed from the ball-room ; when, incontinently, the wine would 
be drained, twenty strong arms would encircle as many round 
waists, and away they would gallop to the waltz. All classes 
were here mixed promiscuously ; mustachioed officers ; worthy 
tradesmen of the village ; and rustics from the hills and vine- 
yards ; — all joined in one democratic, insane, furious whirl. 



Sunday Night in Prussia. 121 

Rarely have I seen a set of finer-looking girls — never healthier 
ones ; though no painter would ever select one of their robust, 
bouncing forms as a model for a Grace. Their chiefest and 
only object, heart and soul, appeared to be concentred in the 
dance ; and when some young couple, just out, would timidly 
revolve — as yet, with weak heads and unpractised legs — their 
more powerful and comme il faut companions would dash up 
to them, until they would be sent spinning out of the circle, 
or be obliged to seek safety in an untimely flight. One tall 
man, with epaulettes, who seemed to possess the belle of the 
evening — a really beautiful girl in a pink muslin dress, which 
she lifted up high enough, as she danced, to display a very 
pretty ankle — led the assembly. My brain actually turned as 
I watched their evolutions, around and around ; the girl's red 
dress flying out, and his red face flaring over her shoulder, 
reminded me of nothing less than Mars waltzins: with a comet. 
Wherever they came, the other dancers flew from before them ; 
the men stopping to admire, the Avomen to envy. Would they 
never stop ? I was beginning to identify myself with their wild 
movement, and experienced a sensation like that of one who 
contemplates for some time the rapid leap of a waterfall — as 
Faust might have felt when Avatching the witches dance on the 
Walpurgis Night. The musicians pufi'ed and blew and per- 
spired ; I felt m^^self spinning around ; when a fiddle-string 
snapped, and the dance concluded. Then came more bottles 
of wine, and more pipes, until again the fiddles squeaked, and 
away they all ran to another waltz : and so on, da capo, until 
I left for bed. 

In another room were the old men, and husbands, or batche- 
lors without female acquaintances, playing dominoes, and 
gravely taciturn, with the sobriety of Silenuses, drinking and 
smoking. For these gentlemen, life was evidently too earnest 
to be lightly danced away. In an outside saloon, Avere men 
playing at ninepins ; and on the walls of an apartment which 
I did not enter, I saw occasionally the shadow of a tall lean 
man, with a billiard cue in his hand. 

It was midnight when I went to bed, but the festivities were 
kept up until a much later hour. W^hen I descended to break- 
11 



122 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

fast the next morning, the fumes of the tobacco still floating 
around the walls, and the little puddles of wine upon the tables, 
made a strange contrast with the bright sunshine and pure air 
without doors. Such scenes as these are probably confined 
almost entirely to Germany; but there have been attempts made 
already to transfer similar customs to our own cities. It is to 
be hoped, however, that all such designs, incipiently indicated 
by Sunday Evening Sacred (?) Concerts, &c., in our American 
lager-beer establishments, may be never suflfered to exist. On 
the Rhine, demoralizing as such amusements must be every- 
where, the people have the excuse that both their law and 
their religion sanctions them. Their political oppression is 
easier kept up by these means, than by a dozen armies. Taci- 
tus relates that the Romans completed the subjection of Britain, 
by teaching the fierce islanders to dance ; and so it is with 
bears, and European states, to-day. 

BACHARACn. 

I devoted a whole summer's day to my walk from Oberwessel 
to Bacharach; filling my sketch-book with little bits of scenery, 
wherever an opening in the hawthorn and willow bushes, showed 
the river through them, or a rock or ruin commanded my 
attention. I crossed the river in a peasant's skiff, at Caub, to 
visit the Castle of Guttenfels, full of recollections of Gustavus 
Adolphus. The spot is memorable as the place where Bhicher's 
army crossed on New Year's Night, 1814, and where his brave 
army, hailing with superstitious enthusiasm their noble river — 
as Egyptians might salute the Nile, or Hindoos the Ganges — 
knelt doAvn upon the strand, and shouted, amid tears of joy, 
"The Rhine! the Rhine!" In returning, I visited also the 
ancient Pfalz Castle, where Louis le Debonnaire died. It stands 
in the middle of the river ; and besides its ruder memories of 
the middle ages, has also many of a more peaceful character. 
It was often a princel}^ abode, offering security to the Countesses 
Palatine, who were accustomed to come hither previous to their 
accouchements. 

The town of Bacharach — a corruption of Bacchi Ara — is 



Bacharach. 123 

one of the quaintest, queerest old towns that exists anywhere, 
famous for its wine, and its legendary lore. It presented to 
me even a more primitive appearance than Oberwessel ; and 
even the inhabitants who eyed me with curiosity that Avas half 
apathy, as I hunted out my inn, through their old-fashioned 
streets, had something inexpressibly antiquated and feudal 
about them. The very ruin on the hill above, looked scarcely 
older than the faces of the children playing in the gutters. 
The inn was such a one as we read of in old stories, with a 
courtyard in which the grass was growing out from between 
the pavement ; with bird-cages around the windows ; low ceil- 
ings, crossed with heavy oaken rafters ; snow-white tables ; and 
brown buxom servant girls, in short jupons and wooden shoes. 

From the old Palatine Castle, on the hill behind it, whither 
I went almost immediately on arriving, I had another magni- 
ficent prospect, commanding, in the embrasures of the moun- 
tains, a view of five other ruins. Upon the left bank of the 
river arose Furstembcrg ; and close on the shore, above the 
Nieder Ileimbach village, was Ileimberg, and higher up, the 
picturesque turrets of the old robber's-nest of Sonneck ; to the 
west, on the other side of the river, Guttenfels ; and towards 
the east, on the rocky height of Tcufelsleiter, above the legend- 
ary Valley of Wisperthal, the Castle of the inhospitable Sibo 
de Lorch, who, the stories tell, refused to open his doors to the 
gnomes, on stormy nights. 

Between the castle and the town, stand the ruins of an exqui- 
site chapel, dedicated to that St. Werner who was crucified by 
the Jews at ObcrAvessel. His body, thrown into the river at 
that point, contrary to the usual laws of hydraulics, miracu- 
lously floated up the current, and was buried with proper 
reverence, by the citizens of Bacharach, on the spot where 
this ruin now stands. Its beauty makes it a favorite subject 
of the German landscape-painters ; and I had already become 
familiar with its fairy proportions in several galleries. I think 
it is the most beautiful ruin of its dimensions I have ever seen. 
Its architecture is of that kind of florid gothic known as the 
"lancet" style; simple, yet elaborately enriched with sculptured 
buttresses, and exquisite traceries in the pointed windows. Weeds 



121 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

and vines clustered around the floor and Avails ; and innumera- 
ble wild flowers, with their fairy attendants, the butterflies and 
bees, made beautiful the broken and rude path that leads to it. 
Below it, was another curious and crumbling church ; but I 
had lingered so long that I had to omit examining it. 

In the evening, I amused myself by conversing without lan- 
guage with my bustling little hostess, but could not advance 
far under such disadvantageous circumstances. Tired at last 
of this, I indited an invisible letter with the ghost of a pen, 
gesticulating with proper emphasis ; she smiled intelligently, 
and brought me writing materials, with which I occupied 
myself until it was time to sandwich myself between the two 
feather-beds. 

a rencontre. 

Some months before, on the cars between Brussels and 
Namur, I made a chance acquaintance with a young Belgian 
gentleman, which circumstances soon ripened into friendship. 
When we parted, after travelling a few days together, it was 
with an appointment that we should meet on a certain future 
day, at the Hotel Weidenbusch, at Frankfort-on-the-Main. I 
had so loitered along on the way, that this day arrived almost 
unawares ; and on awaking, the morning after my arrival at 
Bacharach, I rubbed my eyes, consulted my almanac diary for 
the date of the month, and found I had but twenty-four hours 
left to fulfil my promise. So I hurried my breakfast ; and 
hailing the first boat that came up, I pushed off" from the shore 
in a skiff", as the custom is at all the Rhine towns, where there 
are no quays. As usual, curiosity grouped most of the 
passengers around the gangway, as I stepped on board ; and 
suddenly, as the wheels commenced revolving again, I felt 
myself seized, and saluted with an unexpected embrace. 
Struggling loose from the aff'ectionate caress, I recognised with 
pleasure my friend, who was himself hastening to the rendez- 
vous — a round-faced, jolly gentleman, in yellow kids, which I 
grasped with sunburnt hands on the present occasion. Being 
familiar with the Rhine, and a poet, at least in appreciation of 
the beauty of the scenery, and the sentiment of the legendary 



A Rencontke. 125 

lore of his favorite river, the value of my new friend was 
inestimable to me ; and if I have transgressed the privacy of 
friendship in dragging him into my book, it is only to expresd 
the fond remembrance I still retain of his companionship, both 
amid the gay saloons of watering-places, and the sublime lone- 
liness of Alpine passes. 

Our trip that day to Mayence, and our farther journey, by 
rail, to Frankfort, was unmarked by much of personal adven- 
ture. Leaving Bacharach, we rapidly passed Lorch, a pleasant 
town, situated at the mouth of the mythical Valley of Wisper- 
thal, below the overhanging walls of the Devil's Ladder, up 
which, according to the legends, the sturdy Gilgen clomb in 
search of his betrothed, whom the gnomes had hidden in the 
recesses of the mountain. Commanding the village are the 
ruins of Furstemburg, and of Nollingen, teeming with stories 
of old Sibo, and the fairy Ave. Farther on, to the right, is 
the Castle of lleichestein or Falkenburg, on the summit of a 
rocky hill, abounding in traditions, the finest of which, that of 
Gautram and Liba, is familiar in the story books. Beyond 
this, we passed the restored Castle of Rheinstein, now the sum- 
mer residence of Prince Frederick of Prussia, which is fitted 
up in accordance with the domestic economy of the middle 
ages ; the walls hung with tapestry, and decorated Avith armor 
and branching antlers ; the windows filled with stained glass ; 
and the furniture, collected from old convents and castles, of 
the heavy elaborate fashions of long ago. Just below Bingen, 
arises, in the middle of the river, the Mausenthurm, or Rat 
Tower of Bishop Hatto, whose story forms the subject of a 
beautiful ballad of Southey. Beyond Bingen, a toAvn I looked 
towards with longing eyes, appeared the heights of Niederwald, 
famous for the wines of Asmanhausen and Rudcsheira, which 
villages lie in its neighborhood. It possesses also the attraction 
of having many fine local traditions, one of which is full of the 
peculiar and sad pathos of the story of Jephtha's Vow. 

During the wars of Palestine, a noble knight, Bromser of 
Rudesheim, after destroying a dragon, and performing a thou- 
sand feats of unheard-of valor, was at last taken prisoner by 
the Saracens. In the depths of his despair, while languishing 
11* 



126 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

in captivity, he swore an oath, that if the Virgin permitted 
him ever to return to his Castle, he would devote his only 
daughter, Gisela, to the Church. Meanwhile, the maiden, 
unconscious of her father's durance, had grown up to fair 
maturity, and had responded with her whole woman's heart to 
the loving protestations of a young knight in the neighborhood. 
One can imagine the consternation of the young people, when 
one day there arrived at the Castle an old pilgrim, who turned 
out to be the lady's father, and who made immediate prepara- 
tions for the fulfilment of his vow. Tears and lamentations 
were of no avail, and he threatened her with his curse should 
she disobey ; adding to this severity the precaution of confining 
her in a lofty tower overlooking the Rhine ; from which the 
unhappy girl plunged herself, one stormy night, into the river. 
Her body was found, a few days after, in the eddy of the 
Bingerloch, at the base of the Mauscnthurm, where her spirit 
is still sometimes seen, with that of Bishop Ilatto, around the 
haunted tower.' 

Above this, the river became less picturesque and romantic ; 
the abrupt and castellated cliffs, amid which we had hitherto 
voyaged, resolved themselves into gentle rustic slopes, smiling 
with cultivation, and dotted, here and there, with little rural 
villages. Conspicuous on one of these undulations is the Cha- 
teau de Johannisberg, the manor of Prince Metternich, standing 
white amid the vineyards which produce the famous wines 
called after the estate, the costliest and most luscious in the 
world. The extent of the vineyard is about seventy acres, and 
even in good years produces only about forty butts ; so that, 
like champagne, we have the miracle of seeing a hundred times 
as much of the wine sold in a year as the vines produce. Even 
in the moderate quantity made, there is also a great difference 
in the quality of the wine. The finest is the " bhu-cacJiet," 
which is worth, for a single bottle, at the Chateau, over five 
dollars. It resembles rather a liqueur than a wine, and is 
SAveet and exceedingly fruity. The second in quality is the 
" cachet-rouge,'' a fine wine, differing materially from the first, 
and costing a little more than half the price. The third and 
last kind, which my uncultivated taste preferred to either of 



A Rencontre. 127 

the others, is still dearer than any of the other Rhine wines, 
and is less difficult to procure, in remote towns, than the finer 
qualities. The whole vintage is bought, however, principally, 
by the sovereigns and weathiest nobles of the continent ; and 
it is impossible for the tourist ever to be certain of the wine, 
unless he purchases it in the cellars of the Chateau itself. It is 
a problem to chemists to account for the difference that a few 
feet of distance in the vineyard makes in the wine, with the 
same soil and the same vines. The best grows immediately 
under the walls, and the excellence of the grapes diminishes in 
the ratio of their removal from it. 

Towards sunset, we passed Biberich, where the sandstone 
Chateau of the Duke of Nassau, the handsomest palace on the 
Rhine, was the most remarkable object ; and soon after, the 
red towers of Mainz appeared. We disembarked at Cassel, 
opposite the city, which, as the cars were on the point of start- 
ing, we did not visit ; but, immediately securing our places in 
the second class, soon bade adieu to the Rhine. 

We were borne by starlight to Frankfurt, for a short distance 
along the banks of the Main, passing Hochheim, where the 
vineyards which produce the Hock wines are situated — a name, 
by the way, improperly applied, frequently to the Rhenish 
wines. When we turned off from the river, there was nothing 
more to be seen out of the windows ; so I turned to my com- 
panion, in the hope that he might beguile the tedium of the 
ride by some legend of the neighborhood. 1 was answered 
with a snore. Fatigued myself with the excitements of the 
day, I was preparing to follow his example, when suddenly 
lights blazed in at the windows, and the train stopping, the 
guard threw open the car door, and announced our arrival in 
Frankfurt. 



IX. 

THE ODENWALD. 

My friend and myself passed several pleasant days in the 
ancient imperial city of Frankfurt, varied by excursions to the 
famous Brunnens of this part of Germany, Weisbaden ; and 
Homburg, where one of the most admirable bands in Europe 
performs every day of the season. At both of these fashion- 
able Baths, we met with the usual amount of Serene Transpa- 
rencies, and noble and ignoble tourists from all parts of the 
AYorld ; and witnessed the same excitement and dissipation, and 
gambling and flirting, and ennui, that have all been described 
a hundred times, until they have been made as familiar as the 
same amusements at NeAvport or Saratoga are to American 
readers. 

In fact, I spent so much time in this agreeable idleness^ that 
I found the season past its culmination, when at last I proposed 
to go off to Switzerland. So I left my friend to pack up our 
luggage; and, guide-book in hand, I hastened in a voiture from 
one lion of Frankfurt to another. I went first to the Museum, 
and nearly forgot myself over its fine modern pictures, by 
Lessing and Achcnbach and Overbeck, and its interesting 
antiques of the Flemish school ; thence to the garden, near 
the Friedburg sate, where Ariadne breathes in Dannecker's 
marble. Then I went to the Homer, full of reminiscences of 
the old imperial times ; and to the ancient Dom, which dates 
back to the thirteenth century. I had time, also, to pay a 
hasty visit to the house occupied by Lutheii ; and to that in the 
Hirschgraben, where the three lyres, in an escutcheon over 
the door, indicate the birthplace of Goethe. My friend then 
joined me ; and, after dinner, we walked until late at night 
over the city ; beside the palaces of the New Town, and through 
the narrow quaint streets, overhung by gables in the quarter 
around the Riimersburg, and the Judengasse — the latter a street 
in which the Jewish inhabitants were compelled by law to 



The d e n w a l d. 129 

reside, until a very recent date. I have never been in a town 
•which contained so many statues about the streets as Frankfurt 
does. One cannot enter a single street nor square, but what 
an image of some kind is sure to stare him in the face ; statues 
of Luther and Goethe and Guttenberg ; of saints and satyrs ; 
nymphs, dragons, devils, dwarfs, and giants ; of all epochs and 
all sexes — a dumb community of stone inhabitants every- 
where. 

The next morning we took the early. train for Basle, with a 
fresh enthusiasm for the Alps, that would brook of no delay 
on the route. The scenery was uninteresting at first, until, 
after passing Darmstadt, we entered upon the romantic and 
picturesque region of the Odenwald, where the track runs all 
the way to Heidelberg along the old Bergstrasse, or Mountain 
Road, justly celebrated for its lovely scenery. The hillsides 
were highly cultivated ; and their summits, in nearly every 
case, were crowned with some ruined castle of historic or tra- 
ditional interest. On the other side, a vast sandy plain 
stretched out, through which the Rhine wandered ; beyond 
which, in the blue distance, arose the heights of Mont Ton- 
nerre, and the hills of the Vosges — my first glimpse of the 
beautiful France. The wild mountains on the left, the haunts 
of old robber-knights — and the scenes still, if popular belief 
may be trusted, of their unquiet apparitions — were deeply 
interesting. One ruin, surmounting a wooded hill, my friend 
told me was the Castle of Rodenstein, the hunting-seat of the 
wild Jiiger, whose ghost rides forth, amid storm and lightning, 
at the head of a spectral cavalcade, whenever war or any other 
evil threatens Germany. 

Our morning's ride among these scenes terminated at length 
in Heidelberg ; where, having scarcely an hour in which to 
see the Castle, I left my friend at the station to take the 
refreshment the cars waited for, and, jumping into a vehicle, I 
hurried off to obtain the view I desired. I hardly glanced at 
the buildings in the streets through which I passed, occupied 
as I was with thoughts of the old Counts Palatine, of Eliza- 
beth Stuart, and of Paul Flemming and the fair Emma of 
Hmcnau ; but I was recalled to myself by the driver's intima- 



130 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

tion that I had better walk the rest of the way, by a nearer 
path than the carriage-road. In a few moments I stood upon 
the terrace, drinking in with delight the magnificent view 
before me. It was high noon, but fortunately clouded over; 
and the whole landscape was checkered over with alternate 
lights and shadows, like the history of the Palatinate itself. 
Below me rolled the lovely Neckar, issuing from vine-clad val- 
leys, and winding through luxuriant fields to join the Rhine, 
which gleamed here and there in distant flashes of silver light. 
Towers and spires arose in every direction, indicating the 
existence of numerous cities and villages ; and beyond the 
whole loomed up in the drowsy distance the blue chain of the 
Alsatian Hills. I was obliged to tear myself away from the 
view, to pay a hurried visit to the Garden of Elizabetli, called 
after the unfortunate English Princess ; the Hitter Saal, of 
elaborate Italian architecture, decorated with fine sculptures ; 
and, lastly, the " Great Tun," in the cellar of the Castle. 
This has now but little claims to interest, being at present 
always empty ; but a century ago, when filled with the produce 
of the vintage, and hung around with garlands, the villagers 
danced a Moenad dance on the platform atop of it, it would 
have been worth seeing. It is not unlike an immense brewer's 
vat, big enough to drown a regiment of Clarences. I returned 
to the station barely in time to save ray distance, for in five 
minutes after, we were rushing on again Alpwards. During 
the afternoon, we passed through Carlsruhe, the capital of the 
Duchy of Baden ; through wide districts of fertile cultivation, 
Avhere fields of maizO and tobacco recalled my own country to 
me ; through vineyards and walnut groves, and hemp and hop 
fields, where, as we whirled past, the peasants in their ridicu- 
lous cocked hats would stop their labors to look up at us. 
Farther on, we approached the range of the Black Forest, and 
the immense ruin of Hochsburg, and came to the ancient city 
of Freyburg, at the mouth of the Hollenthal, or Valley of 
Hell ; a region which, in spite of its unattractive name, I 
passed with deep regret, sublime as it is in scenery, and full 
of the most poetical of German legends. 

Towards evening we approached the Rhine again, passing 



The Diligence. 13X 

through several tunnels in the hills, and reached the terminus 
of the railway, four miles from Basle. Here we took omni- 
buses, after a brief delay, on one of which my friend and 
myself secured deck passage ; and we drove gallantly on to 
the town, where we took rooms at the " Drei Kcinige," with 
our windows overlooking the broad rapid stream of the Rhine. 
Across the river, the bank was lined with quaint steep-gabled 
houses, on the apsis of nearly every one of which was a stork's 
nest, around which the long legs of these singular birds were 
always hovering. Beyond arose the fabulous hills of the Black 
Forest, and, opposed to them, the precipitous walls of the Jura, 
which seemed to me, as I looked out upon them, in the clear 
evening, like prophecies of the Alps I had so long dreamed of 
and that I should soon see. The night breeze, in its coolness, 
seemed whispering of the snowy summits from amid which it 
came. The river murmured of " the glacier's cold and restless 
mass;" and the silent stars looked down calmly over all, mys- 
terious and transcendental — looked down as they had erewhile 
gazed on Hannibal and Napoleon ; on Gesler and the patriot 
Tell; and the solemn mountains, in their secrecy of shade, 
seemed full of the same dreams. 



THE DILIGENCE. 

Basle is the usual portal to Switzerland for travellers coming 
from Germany, and is entitled for many reasons to a few words 
of description. The advancing season forbade my lingering 
long away from* the Alps ; but I could not do otherwise than 
devote one day to viewing the curiosities of this old Swabian 
town, the birthplace of Burckhardt, and the residence of Hol- 
bein and Erasmus. In the house Zum Luft, of the latter, 
Froben produced one of the first Bibles ever printed ; and all 
the associations of the town are more or less intimately con- 
nected with the history of the Reformation and of Freedom. 
Early in the morning I went to the terrace called Die Pfalz, 
where I had, fi'om amid the chestnut trees with which it is 
planted, a fine view of the town, the Rhine, and the neighbor- 
ing hills. Near it is the Cathedral, which is almost a thousand 



132 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

years old, dominating, with its twin towers of red sandstone, 
the citj and the river. It contained but little to interest one, 
after the grander Munsters of Germany ; but the Portal of St. 
Gallus, leading to the North Transept, ornamented with statues 
of Christ and St. Peter, and illustrating the parable of the 
Wise and Foolish Virgins, was somewhat remarkable. Some of 
the tombs also were worthy of note. One, of red marble, near 
the altar, contains the ashes of Erasmus ; and another hand- 
some one is that of the Empress Anne, wife of Rudolph of 
Hapsburg, and mother of the line of infamous Austrian princes 
of that name. In one corner of the square before the Cathe- 
dral, is the house "Zur Miicke," containing the public library, 
in which are said to exist many curious books and MSS., with 
a copy of Erasmus's " Laus Stultitiaa," illustrated on the mar- 
gin with autograph sketches of Holbein. 

The Gallery of Paintings contains but little to attract the 
critic or connoisseur, but a great deal to interest the student and 
historian of art. This is, principally, the collection of paint- 
ings and drawings of Holbein, the friend of Erasmus, and one 
of the most eminent painters of his era. Here are also to be 
seen the curious fresco fragments, attributed to him, of the 
Dance of Death. It is related of Holbein, that he was fre- 
quently, as painters are even in this liberal age, in embarrassed 
circumstances — hie frigent artes, as Erasmus complains for 
him — so that he was even compelled to work as a common 
house-painter through the city. It need not excite wonder, 
that, under such melancholy circumstances, the artist might 
wish sometimes for even the consolation the wine-shop afforded ; 
but, being employed on one occasion to decorate the exterior 
of a pharmacy, which the proprietor was desirous of having 
soon completed, the youth had difficulty in making his escape 
for his usual dram, until at last a happy thought occurred to 
him. He painted, on the under side of the scajffold, a pair of 
legs exactly like his own, and so well foreshortened, that the 
apothecary seated below was entirely deceived by them, and 
imagined the painter to be constantly employed at his work, 
during many an hour when he was forgetting it, and the rest 
of his troubles, by getting gloriously drunk at the pot-house. 



The Diligence. 



133 



Basle was never a fast town, in spite of the singular custom 
existing there, until a short time ago, of setting all the clocks 
an hour in advance of the rest of Christian horologes; a cus- 
tom which originated, according to tradition, in the fact thai 
the citj was once preserved from the treason of certain con- 
spirators, who were pledged to deliver it up to the enemj at 
midnight, by the clock striking one instead of twelve. In 
morals, the town has always preserved that puritanical rigor 
which seems inseparable from religious reformations. The 
pious turn of the citizens, Murray tells us, found a ludicrous 
expression, up to a recent date, in the signs and mottoes placed 
over their doors. Two singular ones are recorded in the 
"Handbook:"— 

" On God I build my hopes of grace — 
The Ancient Pig's my dwelling-place." 

" "Wake, and repent your sins with grief— 
I'm called the Golden Shin of Beef." 

And, from another source : — 

" Praise God, from whom all goodness flows- 
Rags bought and sold, here, and old clothes." 

The only other item I have recorded in my note-book, of 
this interesting old town, reminds me that a young girl employed 
in the Museum was the most beautiful woman I had seen in 
Europe— an additional inducement, not down in the guide- 
books, for future tourists to visit it. 

The day was just breaking, and the dark outlines of the 
Black Forest were drawn sharp across the bars of red light 
which preluded the morn, when, for the first time in Europe, I 
assumed a place on a regular diligence, to go from Basle to 
Berne. My friend and myself were fortunate in securing an 
outside place, on the banquette, protected by a caleche from 
the heat, and elevated far enough above the wheels to be free 
from dust. The little vivacious conducteur bustled about, 
completing his arrangements; the postilion was first lifted into 
12 



134 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

his enormous boots, and then assisted into his saddle ; the fat 
Englishman, who had secured the coupd for his individual bene- 
fit, puffed up to us with his Alpine luggage ; Adolphe and 
myself, snugging ourselves into comfortable corners, lighted 
our cigars ; when at last the word was given, and, amid a 
cracking of whips which sounded like a discharge of musketry, 
we dashed off down the old streets, between the silent houses, 
and out into the open country, where the horses broke into a 
steady jogging trot. At first we skirted the bank of the river 
for a short distance, and then turned off into the romantic 
region between Basle and Berne. It was this ride which gave 
me my first impressions of real Swiss scenery. In the early 
part of the day, the ascent of the Ober-Hauenstein, itself a 
formidable hill, suggested an idea of what was before me. 
Every zigzag of the road exposed some new and lovely scene. 
The chain of the Jura, stretching f<ir into the distance, enclosed 
many a lovely valley, through which a fair stream meandered, 
intersj^ersed with the steeples of rural hamlets, and commanded 
by gray feudal ruins. Of these latter, the Castles of Walden- 
burg, of Alt-Bechburg, and Falkenstein, were the most im- 
portant, until we came to Ballsthal, over which hangs the still 
inhabited Fortress of Blauenstein, one of the most important 
military strongholds in Switzerland. At the other side of the 
defile or pass, which this Castle commands, we entered upon 
the lovely Valley of the Aar, where one of the" grandest views 
I ever beheld suddenly broke upon me. On both sides of the 
road were brown mossy ruins ; and above, on a cliff covered 
with chestnut trees, the bold fragments of the Castle of Bipp ; 
below, the road wound down into the valley, through which the 
Aar flows, with the steeples of villages, and the city of Soleure, 
rising amid its cultivated fields ; and beyond the valley and 
the nearer mountains, drawn in bold relief against the cloud- 
less azure, arose the cold, dreamy snow-peaks of the distant 
Alps. From our lofty position on the banquette, we were able 
to catch one full, thrilling glimpse of all this, ere we dashed 
down into the valley. 

We dined at Soleure, where we arrived in time for the table 
d'hote ; and afterwards, resuming our places on the diligence, 



The Alps. I35 

drove through scenery continually increasing in interest and 
grandeur, -svith new glimpses of the Alpine range ; until towards 
evening we arrived, fatigued with the heat and excitement of 
the day, at the city of Berne. 



THE ALPS. 

"We passed several happy days at Berne, my friend and I, 
driving and walking about the various suburbs ; to the Terrace 
of Enghe, outside the Aarsburg Gate; and to the Hill of 
Altemburg, where magnificent views of the mountains were to 
be had. At other times we would lounge through the streets, 
under the arcades ; feeding gingerbread to the bears in their 
habitation in the Biirengraben ; and strolling around the ram- 
parts, now converted into pleasant promenades, with trees and 
shady walks, and the most beautiful of all possible distances in 
the background. Sometimes we would be alone ; and at others 
with friends, such as one makes or meets continually in this 
part of Europe, at this season. Among others, I have souve- 
nirs of Berne, associated with a fair young Russian, that would 
make poetic the recollections of a far more prosaic place. 
Many a bright evening have I stood, with these friends of the 
past, on the platform, gazing away at the six snowy peaks of 
the Bernese Oberland, Avhich the sunset would enchant into 
faerie realms ; surrounding them with opalescent glories of 
ineffable beauty ; — so far, and yet so distinct : so solemn, and 
yet so glowing, I longed to explore their inmost recesses and 
vales, as the pilgrims viewed and yearned, from afar, for the 
Delectable Mountains. And when night succeeded the sunset, 
it was only to awaken new enchantments, when the moon arose, 
and the stars came forth into the azure. Then the eternal 
hills, erewlule seeming built of sapphires and rubies, would 
gleam with pearly hues, growing vaster in the crepusculous 
light, looming up like phantom hills in some spirit-world. 

On all this we turned our backs for the present, and travelled 
northward to Neuchatel ; and penetrated the recesses of the 
Jura, to Chaux de Fonds, to witness the manufacture of the 
delicate time-pieces that adorn the zones of our ladies ; and 



136 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

enjoyed, from the summit of the Chaumont, a view of the 
whole Alpine array, in one grand coup d'oeil, from the Titlis 
to Mont Blanc. On the slope of this hill, my companion had 
some friends, who occupied a delightful villa, from the roof of 
which we viewed the mountains with a splendid telescope, and 
one niffht saw through it a chalet ablaze, on the side of a 
mountain thirty miles distant. From Neuchatel, we sailed 
down the beautiful lake to Yverdon, and crossed over by omni- 
bus to Lausanne ; where we occupied rooms at the Hotel Gib- 
bon, which stands on the site of the house in which the great 
historian resided. Thence we passed up Lake Leman, of which 
Voltaire wrote, with truth, " mon lac est le jjremier ;'' full of 
reminiscences of Rousseau and Byron and Madame de Stael ; 
the home and haunt of poets and philosophers ; the scene of 
glorious struggle for Freedom, and for Truth ; and the spot of 
all others where Life might glide by like a happy dream, folded 
under the wings of Love, and kept pure by the influence of 
undying Beauty and the inspiring dominion of the Infinite. 

At Geneva, our time — passed in excursions into the moun- 
tains, in boating out on the lake, and in watching Mont Blanc 
from the roof of the hotel — seemed well spent. The town is 
rich in historical memories, though small enough to have occa- 
sioned the characteristic sneer of Voltaire, " when I shake my 
perruquc, I powder the whole republic ;" yet, from this 
despised place have sprung the religious doctrines and the 
political opinions, which, germinating in the religious faiths of 
Holland, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, and a large part of 
France, formed also the creed which our OAvn Puritan fathers 
brought to our shores, from which our revolution originated, 
and by which our independence has been established and main- 
tained. The mere names of the illustrious men, citizens, by 
birth or adoption, of this town, would fill pages ; — those of 
Calvin and Rousseau ; of Casaubon and Neckar ; Huber, Sis- 
mondi, and Merle d'Aubign^, may be cited to show the indebted- 
ness of the world to the city which has earned the position of 
th.e intellectual metropolis of Switzerland and the Rome of 
Protestantism. 

Where Nature was so lavish in her beauties, however, I had 



Chillon. 137 

but little time to devote to other attractions ; and I left Geneva, 
knowing scarcely more of the haunts and habits of her men of 
genius, than I knew before. In fact, the town has but few 
"sights," and I was glad of it. I had learned already that 
such things are not the loftiest end or aim of travel ; and with 
this knowledge came a higher appreciation of Nature, whose 
glories are immutable and eternal ; Avho is ever interesting to 
the true student ; and whose language, unlike that of man's 
imperfect work, is never unintelligible to the simple-hearted, 
nor subject to the confusion and pedantry of criticism. 

From Geneva, we returned again down the lovely lake, stop- 
ping this time at Vevay, at its opposite extremity. This vil- 
lage is the pleasantest place I know of, and the hotel (Trois 
Couronnes) on the immediate shore is the best I have ever been 
at, out of America. Situated at the mouth of the gorge of the 
Vevyse, it is perhaps the point where the most beautiful views 
in Switzerland are to be found. With a charming atmosphere 
in summer, romantic and tender associations, fine scenery, and 
every facility in the world aflforded for enjoying them all ; it 
is a place both for a Sybarite and a poet, a philosopher, artist, 
or any one else, to enjoy in its fullest extent the pleasure of 
existence. I cannot express my own sympathies for the place 

better than in the elegant words of Rousseau: — "Je 

pris pour cette ville un amour qui m'a suivi dans tons mes voy- 
ages. . . . Je dirai volontiers a ceux qui ont du gout et qui sent 
sensibles, Allcz a Vevay, visitcz le pays, examinez les sites, 
promenez-vous sur le lac, et dites si la nature n'a pas fait ce 
beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire, et un Saint Preux!" 

CHILLON. 

My friend was called away for a few days on business ; and 
I devoted an afternoon, therefore, to a pilgrimage to the Cha- 
teau de Chillon, the prison of Bonivard, immortalized in the 
fine verses of Byron. I drove thither by a pleasant road along 
the borders of the lake ; through " Clarens, birthplace of sweet 
Love," so exquisitely described in the Nouvelle Ildloise ; Ver- 
ney, the home of Voltaire ; and other picturesque little hamlets, 
12 * 



138 European Life, Legend, axd Landscape. 

nestling in the embrasures of the mountains, or, Narcissus-like, 
overhanging their lovely reflections in the transparent waters. 
A short time brought me to the gates of the Castle ; where, 
leaving my voiture, I was conducted over the antique drawbridge 
into a court, where a smart-looking peasant girl received me, 
who instantly began to talk with great volubility in French. 
Discovering that I was an American, she changed Avith ready 
courtesy her dialect, and spoke afterwards in a very sweet 
broken English, as she dealt out explanations, which, however 
stereotyped and got by rote, still had an inexpressible piquancy 
in them. She showed me first through the guard-room, and the 
Hall of Sentence ; where, on an immense rock, which still 
exists, the prisoner was stretched to receive his sentence and 
meet its immediate execution. " Here," said my bright-eyed 
eonductress, " two thousand Jews were strangled, men, women, 
and children." The black plague, which appeared at one time, 
giving their persecutors the excuse that their unfortunate vic- 
tims had poisoned the wells. "This," she continued, with an 
arch smile, "was all done in the good old times, for Religion's 
sake and the glory of God !" A little farther on, between two 
dark walls, a beam called the potence was stretched across, used 
in the same happy period as a gallows. The process of hang- 
ing was a very cruel one ; the rope being first adjusted around 
the victim's throat, then thrown over the beam, and drawn 
gently up, with a merciful desire, probably, not to break his 
neck. Opposite this was the door, now walled up, through 
which the corpses were thrown into the lake. Beyond this, I 
was shown the dungeons ; where, arresting our steps at the 
door, the guide detailed to me somewhat of the history of the 
Oastle. 

Its origin dates so far back that we do not know, with cer- 
tainty, who was its founder ; but, from the situation and plan 
of the oldest architecture, it is conjectured to have been built 
and used by the primitive Christians as a church. The first 
authentic account of it states it to have been used by Louis, 
the son of Charlemagne ; but little more is known of it, until 
it was repaired and enlarged, in the thirteenth century, by 
Amedeus IV. of Savoy, and became used both as a ducal resi 



Chillon. 139 

dence and a state prison ; which it continued to be until, in 
1536, the Swiss wrested it from Charles V. of Savoy. Telling 
me this much, my fair guide ushered me into the prison, a long, 
low, spacious dungeon, divided into two aisles, like the crypt of 
a church. Its floor, and one side, is formed of the natural 
rock ; and the only light is what is reflected from the surface 
of the lake, which wavers continuously in pale twilight billow? 
on the oppressive roof. While I examined these particulars, 
my conductress related to me the story of Bonivard, the real 
Prisoner of Chillon. He was the Prior of St. Victor, and 
rendered himself obnoxious to the Duke by his liberal senti- 
ments and his eff"orts to free his countrymen. One day his 
duties called him from Lausanne to visit an interior town. 
Accompanied by a single servant, he rode along unconscious 
of any danger ; when he was suddenly beset by fifty armed 
villains, minions of the Duke. He stood upon the defence, 
even against these odds, and bade his servant give him his sword, 
but the traitor threw it far from his reach. The rest is soon 
told. For six long years he lay in this dungeon, confined by 
an iron chain only four feet long. The ring in the pillar to 
which he was attached still exists, as well as the prints of the 
melancholy footsteps, Avorn in the solid rock by his constant 
pacing to and fro the length of his short chain. As I stood in 
his very footprints, and thought of the lone dark days and 
nights of the solitary martyr, in his rayless confinement, as he 
paced up and down, hearkening to the wild dashing of the 
wintry waves against his dungeon walls, and as hopelessly lis- 
tening to the soft breathing of the summer winds, as, fragrant 
with perfumes, they gently rippled the waters — I felt the truth 
and beauty of Byron's sonnet, as I repeated it to myself: — 

" Eternal spirit of the chainless mind ! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art, 

For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom — 

Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 



140 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

Chiilon ! thy prison is a holy place, 
And thy sad floor an altar — for 'twas trod, 

Until his very steps have left a trace, 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod. 

By Bonivard ! — May none those marks efface : 
For they appeal from tyranny to God." 

Bonivard was released at the final assault of the Castle ; and 
when the victorious Genevese, bursting into his prison, cried, 
"Bonivard, thou art free!" he moved not, nor gave way to any 
emotion of joy, until they had answered his question — ^^ And 
Geneva r' The republic, too, he found free, under the foster- 
ing influence of the new religion ; and he lived for many years 
to enjoy its rewards and honors. 

Near his cell is shown tliat of his pupil, who shared his fate, 
through a rash attempt to liberate his master. He was a brave 
man, and his end was a sad one. He burst his chains, and, 
when the gaoler brought him his food, he turned the tables, and 
locked him in ; then flying through the Hall of Justice, he 
leaped from a window into the lake ; but, falling upon a rock, 
he was dashed to pieces. He was a painter, too ; and I took 
a sad interest in the fragments of the drawings with which he 
beguiled the hours of solitude in his cell. They still exist on 
the walls, and represent the Virgin, with St. Christopher bear- 
ing the infant Saviour in his arms across the Rhine at Cologne. 
The somewhat sino;ular le^rend that the desio;n illustrates, was 
thus told me by my fair cicerona of the Chateau : — 

Once on a time, there lived in Germany a great giant, who 
determined to serve any one ho could find who might be stronger 
than himself; so he straightway enlisted into the service of a 
powerful monarch, with whom he set out upon his travels. One 
day, while they were journeying along, the king and the giant 
met with, on the road, no less a personage than the devil, with 
his full dignity of horns and forked tail. When he saw him, 
the king turned pale, and would have fled, but the giant 
restrained him, and inquired the reasons for his fear ; whereupon 
his majesty introduced his companion to Satan, as one much 
more powerful than himself. So the giant left the king in dis- 
gust, and entered into the service of the devil. Things went 



C H I L L N. 141 

on very well for a time, until one day, as lie and his master 
•were out walking together, they came accidentally upon a cross ; 
and now Satan's turn had come, and he turned pale ; and the 
giant wishing to know why he did so, he explained the divine 
symbol of Christ, and the power of the Saviour, to him, and 
forthwith vanished in blue flames. So, now the giant, still in 
pursuit of a potent master, determined to serve Christ; but so 
little was known of our Lord in Germany at that time, that 
he was unable to learn where to find him. One night, however, 
as he sat thinking about the matter, in his castle at Deutz, 
opposite to Kbln, he heard a voice outside the door, calling 
upon him. He immediately arose and went out, and found a 
beautiful child, who requested to be borne over the stream. 
The giant good-naturedly complied, and strode into the river 
with the child upon his shoulder, but he had not reached the 
middle before his burden grew so heavy that he could hardly 
move under it. This disproportion between the size and the 
weight of the child astonished him, and he inquired why it was. 
The boy gave a sweet smile, as he replied, " I am Christ, and 
I am heavy because I carry the sins of the whole world !" When 
he had spoken thus, he at once became lighter ; and when they 
had reached the shore, the giant knelt, and acknowledged him 
as his lord; and ever afterwards he employed himself in his 
service, and received, from the circumstance of his having 
borne Christ on his shoulder, the name St. Christopher 

(Xpifftov 4>fpoj). 

When my guide had finished telling me this little tale, she 
showed me the names of Byron, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, 
Dumas, Sue, Cooper, and other illustrious holographs, carved 
on the pillar to which Bonivard was chained. On the wall near 
it, was also scratched, in big awkward letters, a name which 
made them graceful — Percy Bysshe Shelley. Leaving the 
cells, we passed through the principal gateway, over which was 
still inscribed, in German characters, an inscription meaning, 
"Blessed be the entering, and the coming out !" My guide, 
as she pointed it out to me, said, with great naivetd, that they 
Trer? indeed blessed who came out, but those who once entered 
it must have thought otherwise of the going in. She then led 



142 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

me to the Hall of Justice, ''or, rather," she observed, "of 
jTwjustice;" and from thence into the room of torture, where 
the wretched prisoners were suspended by pullies on a post, and 
their feet burned with red-hot irons, until they confessed what 
their accusers demanded. The wood of the post still bears the 
marks of the irons. I was then conducted into the Duke's 
bed-room, where some of the old furniture is preserved, includ- 
ing a table and three beautifully carved bed-posts. From a 
window in the Duchess's apartment, there is a fine view of the 
lake, taking in the small island with "the three tall trees," 
celebrated by Byron. In the Duke's chamber, there is a door 
communicating with a secret passage, by which he might make 
his escape in any danger. There is a closet, too, where he con- 
cealed his treasures ; and, in the kitchen, the remnants of the 
old culinary utensils. The ceilings are all of larch wood, beau- 
tifully carved, and perfectly preserved. The lower rooms now 
serve as armories for the Federal Swiss Government, and con- 
tain, among others, two admirably cast cannon, more than a 
hundred years old. 

Thus I wandered for some time over the old Chateau, while 
my guide entertained me with many a tale of horror and 
romance, familiar to the old walls, and all done in the good 
old times. "I think," said she, as we once more emerged 
into the open air, " that it is much better to live in the bad new 
times !" I thought so, too. 

When I left, she gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers; and, 
by way of stirrup-cup, told me a legend of Diablerie, apropos 
of a hill in the neighborhood, which, when the glaciers break, 
throws immense stones over into the valley, thus originating a 
superstition that the devil has a forge under the hill. I returned, 
well pleased, to Vevay ; where I found my friend bargaining 
for some of the beautiful Avood-work for which the Swiss are 
celebrated ; of which I purchased myself more than I could 
carry, for the sake of the Beautiful, and a pair of chamois horn 
boot-pullers, for that of the Useful. Dinner, with Rhone wine 
and Rhone trout, was concluded with a cigar and a moonlight 
excursion over the lake to St. Gingo. 



X. 

THE BERNESE OBERLAND. 

THE WEXGERN-ALP. 



After a few dajs of this luxurious indolence at Vevay we 
arose early one bright morning, and my matinal exercise' of 
putting on my boots was varied by my essaying to use my 
chamois-horn assistants; the result of which experiment was, 
that the delicate points gave way, and I executed a brilliant 
pas m ground and lofty tumbling, not particularly graceful 
but decidedly amusing, judging from the merriment it occasioned 
in my friend. We took the diligence again, and soon com- 
menced winding up the hill behind the town, from the summit 
of which we had our last view of Lake Leman— a scene of 
unspeakable beauty; the greens of the foreground shining with 
dewy brightness; the lake a sheet of sparkling silver; and the 
crisp sharp outlines of the mountains, beyond, bathed in a 
warm morning radiance ; while the soft mists rising out of the 
ravines were caught by the brisk morning breeze, and twisted 
into delicate wreathed phantasies of cloud. We dined at 
Freyburg, ; where we afterwards had time to hear the cele- 
brated organ in the Cathedral, and to examine the remark- 
able suspension-bridges, spanning the wild ravines around the 
city. We arrived at Berne in the evening, having passed over 
many a scene of loveliness worthy the pen and pencil of any 
poet or artist, and where we should have been delighted to have 
remained, but that we were impatient to commence our foot- 
rambling through the Oberland. 

The next morning, we took a private voiture to go to Thun. 
The drive was a charming one, affording, nearly all the way, 
fine views of the Jungfrau, and the neighboring Alps. The 
road was bounded on all sides by highly cultivated fields, and 
dense pine woods, with fine variety of hill and dale, and occa- 
sional glimpses of the river Aar. The peasants in their pic- 
turesque costumes ; the lumbering diligence, and swift carriages 



144 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

that passed along the road ; the quaint picturesque cottages and 
farm-houses, with their wide galleries and curiously thatched 
and tiled roofs ; the villages with their queer spires, and ram- 
bling old inns, with yards full of pigs, ducks, chickens, and 
children ; the women washing at the fountains, and the posti- 
lions watering their horses, and wining themselves at the doors ; 
the servant-maids, in laced bodices and short petticoats, with 
bottles and glasses, at the windows of the thirsty diligence ; — 
all were attractive features in the landscape, as we hurried by 
all of them. After drinking a bottle of wine in the beautiful 
garden of the hotel at Thun, where a band of concealed musi- 
cians was playing amid the trees, we embarked on the steam- 
boat, and had a pleasant sail up the lake to Interlaken, passing 
under the shadows of the Stockhorn and the Niesen, the avant- 
couriers of the Alps, who arose in snowy magnificence from the 
borders of the lake. At Interlaken, we remained only one 
day, as, although its scenery was fine and its company good, 
its attractions were insufiicient to cause a delay in our pedes- 
trian excursion. We left therefore the next morning, driving 
through the rain to Lauterbrunncn, accompanied by the Ober- 
land guide we had secured. We passed at first over green 
meadows, looking drenched and aguish in the sullen morning; 
then, coming to a more broken country, the square tower of the 
Castle of Unspunnen looked blankly down on us through the 
mist — a feudal stronghold, the reputed residence of Manfred, 
and possessing many associations of more genuine romance. 
Two little villages came next out of the fog, where we were 
besieged for alms by the most disgusting set of beggars in the 
world — gibbcrino; cretins, and horrid creatures with their necks 
swollen with goitre, disputed with the rain at the carriage win- 
dow, until we were fain to be charitable to be released from 
them. The road now became every moment wilder, plunging 
into a dark and savage gorge, overhung by rocks and black, 
oozy trees, the whole scene being rendered gloomier by the 
tempest of rain through which we were driving. In the midst 
of this, where the cliffs were most threatening, and the wind 
sobbed through the darkest pines, we came suddenly upon the 
"Brothers' Stone," marking the scene of a fratricide, fit spot 



The Bernese Oberland. 145 

for suet a deed. Soon after, Tve caught sight of the numerous 
■waterfalls, leaping from the cliffs above Lauterbrunnen ; and 
among them I immediately recognised the " heaven-born" Stau- 
bach, waving to and fro in the winds, 

"— — like the pale courser's tail, 
The giant steed to be bestrode by Death, 
As told in the Apocalypse." 

Our prospects were rather gloomy, when we entered the inn 
dining-room, which was filled with discontented tourists, flat- 
tening their noses on the window-panes, in vain longings for 
the rain to cease. Our breakfast restored our spirits in some 
degree, however; and, just as we were reflecting what to do 
next, the sun broke gloriously out over the valley, the mists 
rolled away up the ravines, and our guide intimated his opinion 
that we might start with safety. We seized hold of our alpen- 
stocks, decorated with chamois horns and freshly branded at 
the inn, and dashed down the path to the foot of the Wengern- 
Alp. After crossing the valley of Lauterbrunnen, we turned 
off up a bridle-road, leading in abrupt steep zigzags up the 
precipitous side of the mountain. After an hour or more spent 
in rather toilsome but exciting ascent, we came to a little ham- 
let, where we stopped to refresh ourselves, and look back upon 
our previous path. The town we had so lately left, from this 
height appeared like a toy village ; the Staubach, a mere 
thread of silver light ; and the opposite cliffs, under whose 
precipices we had walked with awe, seemed but a mere hillock, 
on whose top we looked down contemptuously. While we were 
thus occupied, we were overtaken by a party of Gcnevese stu- 
dents, with whom we joined company thenceforth. Resuming 
our walk, we crossed around the hill, over a less precipitous 
road, towards the Jungfrau, which arose immediately in front 
of us, in all its magnificence of snow and glacier, from which 
the sun was dazzlingly reflected. About noon, we arrived at 
the little inn on the summit ; where, after changing our clothes, 
which, being saturated with perspiration, were uncomfortable 
in the cold air of the height, we had our dinner served up in 
the open air, in sight of the grand peak across the valley, 
13 



146 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

which seemed, through its colossal proportions, scarcely a 
stone's-throw from us, but which was in reality nearly a mile 
distant. The dinner, though humble, was luxurious to our 
appetites, sharpened by our morning's walk and the pure air 
we inhaled. For music, we had the thunder of falling ava- 
lanches, and the continuous murmur of mountain streams. It 
was long before we caught sight of one of the former, as they 
fell more frequently from the farther sides of the mountain ; 
but a sudden exclamation from my friend drew my eyes to a 
glacier, where I was able to detect a slight motion. All at 
once, a part of it arose into the air, and lazily turned over like 
the curve of a breaker ; then in another moment came a mighty 
roar, echoing among the hills, and frightening away the silence 
that reigns for ever amid the unsullied rest of the sleeping 
peaks. Meanwhile we traced the headlong avalanche, like a 
stream that had suddenly broken forth out of the earth, glanc- 
ing here and there amid the rocks and ravines, until a white 
vapory cloud arose like its ghost from its grave in the valley 
beneath. 

After our meal was over, we resumed our alpen-stocks, and 
commenced the descent towards Grindelwald, by a steep and 
difficult path strewed with immense fallen rocks, amorphous, 
like relics of the primeval chaos. We descended very leisurely, 
stopping every now and then to gaze at a snow-peak or an 
avalanche, and leaving the path to pluck the beautiful Alpine 
roses, blooming like love in a rude man's heart, amid glaciers 
and eternal barrenness. We stopped at a chalet to rest, and 
partake of a rich feast of strawberries and cream, a luxury 
which is enjoyed later in Switzerland than in any other part 
of the world. The red juicy coolness of the berries, gleaming 
up through the clotted obscurity of the cream, would have been 
attractive at any time, but, to our thirsty fatigued, appreciation, 
they brought a refreshment that was almost divine. We might 
have rested there until this time, like the Lotus-eaters, unmind- 
ful of all else, had not the store of delicacies proved as 
evanescent as the other pleasures of life. 

As we approached the base of the mountain, we passed the 
Bcattered wrecks of forests destroyed by past avalanches, the 



The Bernese Oberland. 14T 

"withered desolate trunks, that reminded Bjron of himself and 
his family. As we traversed this dangerous locality, and I 
looked upwards to the cloudy peaks, where the snow still lin- 
gered, I breathed quicker, and involuntarily hastened my steps. 
Besides the Virgin, the Monk, with his cloudy capote around 
his shoulders, the Giant, the Peak of Terror, the Wetterhorn, 
and the Faulhorn, with the opposite height of the Great Schei- 
deck, arose around us. Below, the valley of Grindelwald, 
where the icy parent of the Rhone melts into the rivulet, that 
erewhile becomes a glorious river, winding far away amid vine- 
clad banks in sunny France — all was spread out before us in 
the golden evening, which slowly, and as if by magic, clothed 
in alternate pearl and purple, gold and azure, the stainless sum- 
mits and the deep valleys. As we stopped to gaze, a moun- 
taineer, a little way off, blew the long Alpine horn with which 
they are accustomed to awake the echoes for travellers. A 
multitude of melodious reverberations ensued, dying away 
amid the twilight of the ravines ; and I bowed before the influ- 
ence of the Beautiful and the Infinite. 



THE GREAT SCHEIDECK. 

At Grindelwald we found good accommodations at the Adlcr 
Hotel, and a good dinner sufficiently restored us after the 
fatigues of our walk. I sat up later than I should have done, 
that night, gazing out of my windows on the glaciers and snow- 
peaks, gleaming white and spectral in the light of the moon ; 
and listening to the peasant girls singing Ranz de Vaches in 
the shadows beneath. These songs, with the choristers unseen, 
heard in the silent night, amid the Alps, have a strange, sweet 
effect ; and the way they are rewarded is also picturesque, bits 
of coin being wrapped in paper, which is then lighted and 
thrown blazing out of the window to the recipients, who find 
the money by the fire. 

The next morning, stiff and weary from the fatigues of the 
day before, we commenced our walk before breakfast. On our 
way, we visited the lower glacier, one of the largest and most 
beautiful amid the Alps, Its lower part, fringed with fir forests, 



148 European Life, Legend, an: Landscape. 

and extending down to the green pastures at the foot of the 
mountains, is made more beautiful bj the contrast of the ice 
with the verdure. The view upon it was not less strange than 
magnificent; immense icebergs, "like fragments of a crystal 
world," Avere heaped up into most fantastic images, shapeless, 
or, assisted bj the imagination, assuming the greatest variety 
of forms, — stalagmites, pinnacles, statues, domes, and cities. 
The cultivated valley was entirely shut out, and nothing was 
visible save the cold blue sky, and the cold solemn peaks of the 
Eigher, Schreckhorn, and their royal neighbors. The excur- 
sion on the ice is somewhat dangerous — several persons have 
been lost in its gaps ; and our guide told us that his own father 
once fell many feet down a crevice, but was miraculously pre- 
served, and crawled out, half-starved and with a broken limb, 
on the second day afterwards. 

We halted at a convenient chalet to breakfast, where, how- 
ever, the peasants had nothing but bread and cheese to offer 
us, with milk which was drawn warm from the goats as we 
drank it ; — a pastoral meal, that would perhaps have been dis- 
gusting at any other time, but it seemed then the best I ever 
partook of, and we struggled, as each goat was driven up, for 
precedence in holding our gourds to the generous udders. The 
rest of the way to the top was unmarked by any unusual inci- 
dent. The mountains were as grand as ever, and we admired 
and sketched and gathered flowers and trudged on, as we had 
the day before. A storm of rain overtook us before we reached 
the hotel on the summit, so we hastened onwards without visit- 
ing the upper glacier. By the time we succeeded in reaching 
shelter, the mist had enveloped the hills, and we thus lost, 
also, the several fine views which are to be had at this point. 
At the inn, we found a number of drenched and disconsolate 
tourists, like ourselves, and among them we made the acquaint- 
ance of tAvo charming American ladies, who were travelling 
through Switzerland by themselves. As the accommodations 
for passing the night where we were, were very unpromising, 
and the rain, which had gradually cleared off, had made the 
roads slippery and dangerous, we persuaded the ladies to send 



The Bernese Oberland. 149 

their horses back to Grindelwald, and descend to Meyringen 
under our protection. 

This part of the journey, in spite of the inconvenience of 
the rain, was exceedingly interesting. The mountains looming 
superbly through the obscurity, with an occasional peak lifting 
its head grandly above the tumultuous vapory sea, shining like 
truth ; the mists rolling in dewy wreaths up the ravines ; the 
clearer verdure of the grass, and the waterfalls swollen by the 
rain, dashing more wildly than ever, all increased rather than 
diminished the grandeur of the scene. One bold mountain, 
Miss P., who had travelled in the Orient, compared with Mount 
Sinai ; and, as she spoke, a cloud above it emitted a vivid flash 
of lightning ; the hills seemed to reel and bow before it, as the 
immediate thunder lenped from peak, and roared away up 
among the hills. 

A fresh shower succeeding, compelled us to seek shelter 
again in the inn near the Falls of the Reichenbach, from 
whose windows we gazed out at the magnificent cataract. From 
thence we were soon permitted to renew our descent ; were 
ferried over the Aar in an open boat ; and trudged, rather wet 
than weary, before sundown, into " Merry Meyringen." We 
had a jolly dinner at the Hotel Sauvage ; and, by a singular 
coincidence, meeting two other American ladies at the inn, we 
made a pleasant party in the evening, in a private parlor, 
recalling reminiscences of home, with music, and futile efforts 
at table-moving, which convinced us that there were no ghosts 
amid the Alps. 

The following day we took a carriage to Brientz, passing 
through the beautiful valley of the Aar. Immediately on 
arriving, we took a small boat to convey us over to the Giess- 
bach Falls, a succession of beautiful cascades, which we found 
to exceed description. The waters reel and tumble along in 
sparkling gayety, leaping from ledge to ledge, over mossy rocks, 
between grassy knolls and forests of fir ; now falling over in a 
clear unbroken sheet of azure, streaked with foam, and again, 
dashing itself to profuse spray, iris-tinted and silver, in the 
sun. The inn at this place has been, for many years, occupied 
by a family of choristers, who have inherited, from generation 
13* 



150 EuBOPEAN Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

to generation, sweet voices and a real endemic genius for their 
mountain airs. The patriarch among them was then over 
seventy years old, and he still leads the piping sopranos of his 
grandchildren, in their birdlike concerts. They gather around 
the road as the travellers descend, blow their long Alpine 
horns, and chant their wild strains, in a manner that would 
unbutton the pockets of the most churlish individual. The 
steamboat passing along for Interlacken, received our fair com- 
panions, with whose amiable society accident had so favored 
us ; while we returned to Brientz, and thence to Meyringen, 
where we struck off to the left, and walked over the Brunig 
Pass to Lungern. 

Another day's walking took us to Alpnach, on the lake of 
Lucerne, a town romantically associated with the Swiss strug- 
gles for independence, and famous, also, in the same connexion, 
for the loves of Jageli and Anneli. At Alpnach, we took a 
small bateau, which an old man and his two daughters rowed, 
to convey us to Lucerne. The lake was perfectly calm, and 
the Righi and the surrounding mountains arose superbly into 
the clear evening air. Mont Pilate, alone, was enveloped in 
clouds, a sign of fair weather, according to the boatmen's creeds. 
The shores of this lovely lake are the most beautiful in the 
world, and its historical associations with Tell, and the early 
patriots, make it especially interesting. So lost was I in the 
dreams that these scenes and thoughts suggested, that our boat 
touched the sand at Lucerne before I was aware. Here, one 
of our fair boatwomen, the youngest and the prettiest, who 
had performed wonders at her oar, completed my amazement, 
by leaping out knee-deep into the water, and extending her 
hand to assist my friend and myself ashore, an obligation we 
politely acknowledged. Before I left Switzerland, I became 
more accustomed to such services from women ; indeed, in 
nearly every part of Europe, they perform all the labors of 
men. I have seen women driving the plow ; attending to horses, 
as ostlers; riding them, as postilions ; and carrying vast trunks, 
as porters in the hotels ; and, for the encouragement of the 
defenders of woman's rights, I must confess they performed 
their duties quite as satisfactorily as men could have done. 



L'Envoy. 151 

Our lady acquaintances arrived at Lucerne a few days after 
us, and with them we made some delightful excursions in the 
neighborhood. But the story of ascending the Righi to see 
the sun rise, and only succeeding in catching a cold in the 
damp misty sunless mornings, and of all the other lions of 
Lucerne — from the literal one of Thorwaldsen, to the painted 
bridges, and General Pfyffer's model of the Alps — has been 
told quite often enough. Our last excursion, in company, was 
down the lake to Fluelen, past the most magnificent scenery ; 
vast peaks rising, from green fields and dark forests, to fan- 
tastic pinnacles of eternal snow ; the translucent lake sleeping 
amid the solitary mountains, unbroken by islands and undis- 
turbed by man, rippled only by some stray wind, that seemed 
to have lost its way, and was never certain which way to blow. 
Here was Grlitli, the traditionary rendezvous of the three 
founders of Swiss liberty — Werner of Steinen, Erni of Melch- 
thal, and Walter FUrst of Uri — where they swore " to be 
faithful to each other, but to do no wrong to the Count of 
Ilapsburg, and not to maltreat his governors." Farther on, 
the Chapel of William Tell was passed, nestled in a little nook 
in the precipitous shore of the lake ; the place where the 
"Mountain Brutus" slew the tyrant Gesler. By all these 
scenes of historic and natural sublimity we were swiftly car- 
ried, arriving at last at Fliielen. Here the steamer remained 
a few hours, and my friends accompanied mc, therefore, on foot, 
half the way to Altorf. There we halted, exchanging our kind 
remembrances of the past and good wishes for each other's 
future. My warm-hearted Adolphe embraced me, and with 
repeated adieux we separated — they to return to Lucerne, and 
I to pursue my path to Italy. I stood still in the road, watch- 
ing them until they were out of sight, and then the old lonely 
feeling oppressed my heart. I was alone with the silent moun- 
tains — the cold, melancholy, solemn hills ! 

l'envoy. 

I arrived at Altorf the same evening, sad and solitary ; but 
no one could long resist the influence of its beautiful scenery 



152 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

and its historical suggestions. Before my window at the hotel 
stood a tall tower, illustrating in rude frescos the story of Tell; 
in the square, a little below, a pair of fountains marked the 
sites of the cruel ordeal he was forced to undergo ; the one, 
indicating the spot from which he took his aim, surmounted by 
statues of the noble archer and his child ; the other, two hun- 
dred feet distant from the first, where the lime-tree originally 
stood, on which the cap of Gesler was placed to receive the 
obeisance of the citizens, and to which the child was bound, a 
mark for his father's bolt. The town itself was dreary and 
desolate, exhibiting few signs of life, and less of any employ- 
ment. I remained there all night ; and the next morning, at 
seven o'clock, took my place in the coupd of the diligence, to 
cross the Alps another time. It was a fine bright morning, 
just warm enough to take the cold chill of night from the clear 
Alpine air, and give it that quality of mingled softness and 
elasticity so grateful both in mental action and repose. As 
we wound up the ascent of the mountain, I frequently got out 
to walk ; and, notwithstanding the separation I had undergone 
from my friends, the day before, so bright was the morning 
and so beautiful the scenery, that I Avas conscious of no other 
sensation than that of intense exhilarative enjoyment. The 
Pass of the St. Gothard is a noble one, combining the sublimest 
of scenery with the most perfect safety. After leaving Altorf, 
for some time the road lay through pleasing rural scenery, 
amid meadows and groves of walnut and chestnut trees, through 
which the river Reuss meanders. We crossed a bridge, in the 
stream beneath which it is said that William Tell lost his life, 
endeavoring to rescue a child from its swollen waters, during 
an inundation ; and beyond it we passed the ruins of the famous 
Zwing Uri, the erection of which, by the Austrian Gesler, 
precipitated the revolution it was designed to prevent. Con- 
tinuing on, beset with beggars, and petty merchants with pears, 
cherries, crystals, et cetera, we drove into Amsteg ; emerging 
from which, we commenced the ascent, properly speaking, of 
the St. Gothard. 

The road now became steeper, and the views from it wilder 
and more picturesque, soon crossing the Reuss by a bridge 



L'Envot. 153 

beneath which the river leaped from rock to rock, in a furious 
cataract. Another bridge, called Pfaffensprung, spans a chasm, 
over which, according to tradition, a monk once leapt with a 
maiden in his arms, from which circumstance it derives its 
name. The way, toiling upwards to Goschenen, through nar- 
row gloomy gorges, shut in between granite cliffs, became every 
moment more savage and grand ; until about noon we skirted 
the fabulous rock of Teufelstein, and entered upon the terrace 
leading on the Devil's Bridge, stretched across the torrent of 
the Reuss, which falls in boiling cascades beneath. I had 
walked ahead of the diligence, and I leaned over the parapet 
and looked down upon the din and the trouble of the waters, 
until I was almost giddy. A somewhat rare phenomenon was 
here visible ; the noonday sun, shining doAvn vertically on the 
mist of the fall, produced circular rainbows, one inside of the 
other, " like a wheel within wheel." The rocks shutting in the 
torrent were vast and precipitous, and the whole view one of 
the gloomiest that could be imagined ; yet even this place has 
memories of fiercer conflicts than those of the winter tempests, 
and of hearts as cold and as stern as the granite itself. During 
a single campaign, this has been twice contested within a 
month ; and the old bridge, whose fragments still exist below 
the present one, was blown up while covered with furious com- 
batants, and a bloody battle between the French and the Aus- 
trians raged along the narrow defile. Beyond this, the road 
passed through a tunnel hewn out of the solid mountain, and 
out again, on a fair table land, where the Reuss became once 
more a tranquil stream, and the meadows green and inviting. 
We dined at Andermatt, a village situated immediately beneath 
a glacier, but defended from its fall by a pyramidical forest of 
pines, which are religiously protected by the inhabitants. Our 
dinner, of the fine red trout of the Oberlap See, and the deli- 
cious cheese and honey which the neighborhood affords, pre- 
sented an agreeable contrast to that of the famished hordes of 
Suwarrow, who were fain to swallow a store of soap, and some 
untanned skins, which they found hung out to dry, in the same 
inn. Afterwards we renewed the ascent, passing, among other 
things, the ancient potence, or gallows of the canton. 



154 European Life, Legend, and Landscape. 

We next came to Hospenthal, and soon after changed horses 
at the Hospice on the summit of the pass, where my glad eyes 
strayed afar in search of Italy. Then, they beheld nothing 
but snow-peaks, surrounding a rocky basin, sterile and desolate ; 
but before night, as we were almost hurled down the steep zig- 
zags on the southern side of the pass, they were blest. The 
harsh Swiss names were changed to the softer liquids and 
vowels of the South ; then came the chestnut-trees and green 
meadows and yellow harvest-fields, and the flat square Italian 
architecture ; and the dream of my life stood upon the thresh- 
old of its realization ! 



THE END. 



By the Same Author. 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 

A Volume of Poems. By JOHN K. TAIT. 
1 Vol. 12mo., cloth, 50 cts. 

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•' A small and neat volume of sweet poems, chaste in conception, delicate 
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The grace, ease, and beauty exhibited in the poems of this volume give us a 
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"Radiant with sparkling gems, and will be read with interest by the many 
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" In this little volume there are many fine poetical stanzas, which indicate 
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" We need not bid our readers admire the vivid power of this word-painting, 
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" Far above average merit. The Author, who has travelled, has also ob- 
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"Mr. Tait belongs to the popular school of American Troubadourism, at 
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decided ring of his own, which indicates first-class metal and strength." — 
Graham's Magazine. 

"The Author has the rare gift of putting the best words in their best 
order." — Christian Review. 

"Poetry of an order vastly above much that passes current and is applauded 
as verse in this reading world. None of the pieces are of great length, but 
they show that the Author has the genuine spirit in him." — Presbyterian Ban- 
ner and Advocate. 

PARRY & M'MILLAN, Publishers, Philadelphia. 



JAMES CHALLEN & SON, Publishers, Philadelphia, 

No. 25 South Sixth Street. 



Just Issued. Two Charming Books! 



I. 



f urcpfau lift, i^piiti aiiti fan^srapf. 

BY AN ARTIST. 

The character of this work can be determined by the following 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 



I. 


Land-ho! 


XVII. 


Aix-la-Chapelle. 


XXIX 


Goldener Prop- 


II. 


New riaven (Eng- 


XVIII. 


Charlemagne. 




fenzier. 




land). 


XIX. 


The Grand Reli- 


XXX. 


Oberwessel. 


III. 


An English Railway. 




ques. 


XXXI. 


Sunday Night iu 


IV. 


First Impressions. 


XX. 


The Ring of Fas- 




Prussia. 


V. 


Art in London. 




trada. 


XXXII. 


Bacliarach. 


VI. 


Tiie London Parks. 


XXI. 


Koln. 


XXXIII. 


A Rencontre. 


VII. 


Metropolitan Amuse- 


XXII. 


Dusseldorf. 


XXXIV. 


The Odenwald. 




ments. 


XXIII. 


The Seven Moun- 


XXXV. 


The Diligence, 


VIII. 


London Churches. 




tains. 


XXXVI. 


The Alps. 


IX. 


Westminster Abbey. 


XXIV. 


The Sceptic Con- 


XXXVII. 


Chillon. 


X. 


Parlez vous Anglais. 




verted — a Le- 


XXXVIII. 


The Bernese 0- 


XI. 


Bruges. 




gend of Peters- 




berland — The 


XII. 


The Glove of Charles 




thai. 




Wengern Alp. 




V. 


XXV. 


Rolandseck. 


XXXIX. 


The Bernese 0- 


XIII. 


Rubens, 


XXVI. 


The Dampschiff. 




berland — The 


XIV. 


How a AVoman Died. 


XXVII. 


Coblentz. 




Great Schei- 


XV. 


Brussels. 


XXVIII. 


Knapsack and 




deck. 


XVI. 


The Meuse. 




Staff. 


XL. 


L'Envoy, 




PEICE-Clot] 


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IN AND AROUND STAMBOUL. 

By Mrs. E. Hornby. 

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BY ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, 

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